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EVERY-DAY RELIGION 



BY 



JAMES FREEMAN CLARKE 

AUTHOR OF "SELF-CULTURE," ETC. 



" Of Truth, of Grandeur, Beauty, Love, and Hope, 
And melancholy Fear subdued by Faith ; 
Of blessed consolations in distress ; 
Of moral Strength and intellectual Power; 
Of Joy in widest commonalty spread; 
Of the individual Mind that keeps her own 
Inviolate retirement, subject there 
To Conscience only, and the law supreme 
Of that Intelligence which governs all, 

Wordsworth. 




BOSTON 
TICKNOR AND COMPANY 



1886 



L lBR AR y 






<»' 



Copyright, 1886, 
By Ticknor and Company. 



All rights reserved. 




SJm&crsitn $ress : 
John Wilson and Son, Cambridge. 



CONTENTS. 



» 

Page 

I. How to Make the Most of Life . . 3 

II. The Family in Heaven and Earth . 17 
HI. The Religion which Passes Away, and 

that which Abides . 33 

IV. Emphasis in Religion and Life . . . 49 

V. Speaking the Truth in Love ... 63 

VI. Untranslatable Words 79 

VII. The Duty of being Unfashionable . 95 

VIII. Voluntary and Automatic Morality . 113 

IX. True and False Manliness .... 129 
X. The Rudder, Compass, Chart, and 

Sails in Man ......... 143 

XI. Moral Misalliances • . 159 

XII. Men's Sins going before and after 

Them 175 

XIII. Every "Now" the Day of Salvation 191 

XIV. Standing in the Doorway ..... 209 
XV. Four Kinds of Piety 225 

XVI. What We Possess and What We Own 241 

XVII. What Will Make Us Generous ? . . 257 

XVIII. Power and Aim ......... 273 



VI 

XIX. 
XX. 

XXI. 

XXII. 
XXIII. 
XXIV. 

XXV. 

XXVI. 

XXVII. 

XXVIIL 

XXIX. 



CONTENTS. 

Page 

Vis Inertijs in Nature and Life . 289 
Think of Good Things, not of Bad 

Things 305 

The Sin which Besets Us, and the 

Good ayhich Helps Us 319 

The Good Samaritan 337 

Beginning at the Right End . . . 353 
The Heavens and Hells of the 

Present Life 369 

Moral Mechanics and Dynamics. . 385 

Transition Periods 403 

Lost Opportunities 419 

The Ethics of the Ballot-Box . . 435 

The Bible a Panorama of Life . . 451 



I. 

HOW TO MAKE THE MOST OF LIFE. 



EVEKY-DAY KELIGION. 



HOW TO MAKE THE MOST OF LIFE. 



QOME persons make a great deal of life ; others 
v -' very little. To some it is intensely interesting ; 
to others, very vapid. Some are tired of life before 
they have begun to live. They seem, as has been 
said, to have been born fatigued. Nothing interests 
them. This is a species of affectation with some 
persons to whom it seems a mark of genius to be 
weary of life. They think it argues an enormous 
experience and that they have exhausted everything. 
Wherever it is an affectation it is a very shallow 
one. Noble and manly natures seldom fall into 
this pit of satiety. They are full of hope and 
energy. To them life has inexhaustible charms. 
It is ever more rich, full, and varied. Each day 
dawns with new expectations, and closes with fresh 
hopes for to-morrow. And it is these living men 



4 E VERY-DAY RELIGION. 

who keep the rest of us alive. Whenever we meet 
them more sunshine comes into the day. Let us 
only share their enthusiasm, and we too cannot 
help making a great deal of life. 

How full and rich was the character of the Apostle 
Paul ! How much he made out of his years ! He 
stands, like the Kilometer in Egypt, to tell how high 
the river of Thought, Love, and Will may rise. He 
changed Christianity, before only a Jewish sect, into 
a universal religion, a faith for mankind. Though 
he had never seen Jesus on earth, and never 
heard his teaching, he understood the Master better 
than those who had been with him. Paul could not 
write a gospel, but he comprehended the Gospels 
more truly than those who wrote them. He labored 
more abundantly than they all. He passed through 
more trials than any of the other apostles. He 
planted more churches, took more journeys, wrote 
more letters ; his life was outwardly full of work. 
But besides this, it was a life of thought, of deep 
reflection. His discussions about spiritual and 
moral truths, as recorded in the Epistle to the 
Eomans, take us down to the roots of things. He 
grappled with the primary problems of thought. 
He soared upward, like a flame, to the highest 
heaven of devotion, to the presence of God, where 
angels and archangels veil their faces. But this 
did not content him; perpetual progress was his 
life. " One thing I do : forgetting what is behind, 
and reaching out to that which is before, I press 



HOW TO MAKE THE MOST OF LIFE. 5 

toward the mark." If we ask how it was that Paul 
made so much of his life, — omitting the question- 
able point of his inspiration, — I think we may say- 
it was the enthusiasm of his love, which took him 
out of himself in devotion to his great Master. 

This, then, is the first rule for making the most 
of life : Forget yourself in some interest outside of 
yourself. He who is turned inward, thinking of 
himself, admiring himself, complaining that he is 
ill-treated ; he who thinks he ought to have more 
of the rewards of life, — he is the one who does not 
begin to live. Life is born out of communion, — 
communion with God, Nature, man. "We only 
live," says the profound thinker, the philosopher 
Fichte, — " we only live when we love ! " How true 
that is ! We must be interested in something in order 
to be alive, and no one can take a great deal of inter- 
est in himself. Looking in the glass is an unprofit- 
able occupation. Socrates, indeed, taught, "Know 
thyself;" but the self-knowledge which he advised 
did not consist in minute self-inspection, but in 
testing thought and work by that which other 
men think and do. Socrates did not occupy him- 
self with self-study, but went about the streets 
of Athens taking an interest in all that was 
thought, said, and done. He was interested in 
others, — in the condition of the State, the progress 
of truth, the diet of the soul, the stimulus of good- 
ness, the restraints on evil. How men could be 
made better and wiser, — that was what engaged 



6 E VERY-DAY RELIGION. 

his whole thought, and this made his life one which 
has been the inspiration of mankind. 

But, you may say, we cannot all be inspired 
apostles or great philosophers. No ; but the mo- 
tive, the principle which made their lives rich, we 
can have in ours. This principle is, to be interested 
in something good; to have an object, an aim, a 
purpose outside of ourselves. 

In the great storms which have lately swept over 
the north Atlantic, a steamer from our shores dis- 
covered another, dismasted and rudderless, drifting 
before the gale, its decks swept by terrible seas. 
The sailors volunteered to man a boat, and go to save 
those on the wreck. The labor was appalling, the 
dangers frightful ; but they succeeded, and saved 
the lives of their fellow-men. Which has made 
the noblest use of life, the self-indulgent epicurean, 
who amuses himself with a little art, a little litera- 
ture, a little criticism and a little vapid social 
pleasure, or these rugged, brave hearts, who bade 
defiance to storm and sea, and brought salvation to 
those in despair ? To forget yourself is the secret 
of life ; to forget yourself in some worthy purpose 
outside of yourself. 

The poor steamer foundered because it drifted ; 
because its steering apparatus was lost. The man 
who has no aim higher than himself also drifts ; he 
has nothing by which to steer, nothing toward which 
to direct his life. Do not drift, but steer ; that is 
the second rule. 



HOW TO MAKE THE MOST OF LIFE. 7 

Consider the life of a man like Agassiz, filled 
with an enthusiastic desire to know all the secrets 
of Nature. He, also, like Paul, never counted him- 
self to have apprehended. He forgot what was 
behind, and reached out to that which was before. 
His life was full and rich, and he made the most of 
it. He worshipped God in the temple of creation. 
How happy he was in this immense love for Na- 
ture ! Nothing in her works was too minute to 
interest him, for everything was significant. At 
one end of the scale of human existence stands the 
blase man of the world, to whom nothing seems of 
much importance. At the other end is a man like 
Agassiz, to whom nothing is ^important. To him, 
everything which has been made has a meaning; 
thus he lives in a world in which he sees nothing 
insignificant. 

These men, however, it may be said, were enthu- 
siasts ; they had enthusiasm for some pursuit, to 
which they devoted themselves. But most of us 
are of a more plain, common-sense, practical nature. 
They are no models for us. They are inimitable. 

Then let us look at a man of another type, who 
certainly was not an enthusiast, yet who made more 
of his life, did more, learned more, than any man of 
his generation. I mean Benjamin Franklin. He 
was clear-headed and sagacious ; but that is not the 
key to his remarkable career. I think the secret 
of his vast success was that he did everything as 
well as it could be done. He put his mind into 



8 E VERY-DAY RELIGION. 

his work. His motto might have been, "What- 
ever thy hand finds to do, do it with thy might." 
He prized the present moment, and gave his whole 
thought to it. Most of us do a great many things 
mechanically, satisfied if we do as well as others, 
no worse than the majority, so as not to risk much 
loss or incur much blame. The power of Frank- 
lin lay in this ; that whatever his hand found to 
do, he did it with his might. He did not wait 
till to-morrow to do something, but did what his 
hand found to-day. It is surprising how little he 
had of what is called ambition. It seemed to 
make very little difference to him what he did, or 
where he was. He drifted to Philadelphia, but 
when there he did not drift, but steered. He took 
the first decent work which he could find, and 
did it with his might. The Governor of the 
Province proposed to him to go to London, prom- 
ising to help him to buy a printing-press, that he 
might do the public printing. After Franklin 
had gone the Governor forgot his promise. But it 
made little difference to Franklin. Beino- in Lon- 
don, he went to work as a printer, and there he 
remained till some occasion sent him back again 
to this country. Prudent, economical, industrious, 
watchful, he could not help growing rich. But he 
does not seem to have cared much about that. 
What he wished was to find all the secrets of the 
work he was doing, finish it in the best way, and to 
teach others how to do things well. In his shop in 



HOW TO MAKE THE MOST OF LIFE. 9 

Philadelphia, in a printing-office in London, ambas- 
sador at the court of Louis XVI., conversing with 
British statesmen and philosophers, he was the 
same, — a wide-awake person, with his mind keenly 
fixed on the thing nearest him. He did not w T orry 
about possible future evils, nor torment himself 
about an irrevocable past. He put his whole soul 
into the present moment, the work just at hand. 
He gave as earnest thought to the methods of his 
society of young men in Philadelphia for study 
and discussion, as to a treaty with France or the 
formation of the American Constitution. Each 
thin Qf as it came, took his whole mind, heart, 
and strength. That was why he did so much. He 
lived, as has been said, in the whole. Most of us 
are very apt to live in the half. We put part of 
our mind into our present work ; with the rest of 
our mind we are worrying about the past or the 
future, or imagining what other better things we 
might be doing. So we work in a half-and-half 
way. Do with your might what your hand finds 
to do; that is our third rule. 

A habit of mind which interferes with this con- 
centration of faculty on the present is that of laying 
too much stress on public opinion, and of troubling 
ourselves in regard to what others will think about 
us. One of the good things that Garfield said was 
this: "I do not much care what others think or say 
about me, but there is one man's opinion about me 
which I very much value ; that is the opinion of 



10 E VERY-DAY RELIGION. 

James Garfield. Others I need not think about. 
I can get away from them ; but I have to be with 
him all the time. He is with me when I rise up 
and when I lie down, when I eat and talk, when 
I go out and when I come in. It makes a great 
difference whether he thinks well of me or not." 

Garfield also had the power of doing with his 
might whatever his hand found to do. He began 
life a poor boy, wholly dependent on his own efforts. 
He went to Hiram College when quite young, hardly 
able to support himself there, but full of courage, 
hope, determination to learn all he could, and to 
use all his opportunities. He had the good fortune 
to meet in that place with one of those women who 
help young men to choose the right way in life ; to 
look up instead of down; to have faith in Provi- 
dence and in themselves ; to aim at what is great 
and noble, not to condescend to the current of 
trivial opinion, or be drawn away by it. Having 
the happiness to know such a woman (her name was 
Almeda Booth), he had the good sense to appreciate 
her worth, and to be led by her advice and example. 
This saved him from bad influence, from common- 
place dissipation, from wasting his time, and kept 
permanently before his soul the ideal of making 
of himself all he could. His three ruling thoughts 
were patience, labor, faith. When he began to teach 
school, he made in his mind an imaginary map of 
the school, with each boy in his place. Then he 
thought about each boy separately, and asked, 



HOW TO MAKE THE MOST OF LIFE. 11 

" What can I do for Johnny Smith ? What sort 
of a boy is he ? What does he need most ? " He 
taught school with his might. He said, " Unless 
one believes in something far higher than him- 
self he will fail." On the one hand he deter- 
mined not to be an office-seeker or a place-hunter, 
and to believe that if he ought to have anything, 
God would send it. But this did not lead him to 
trust to chance, for he also said, "Things do not 
turn up in this world. Some one must turn them 
up." " Observe all things," he said ; " question all 
men." He had the good sense to know when 
he found a master from whom he could learn any- 
thing good. Such a master he found in President 
Hopkins. " Give me a log-hut," he said, " with one 
bench in it. Let Mark Hopkins be at one end and 
I at the other, and I would rather have that for my 
college than all your buildings, libraries, and pro- 
fessors without him." When he went to Congress, 
when he was in the war, when he taught school, it 
was always the same. He put his whole soul into 
whatever he did. Whatever his hand found to do, 
he did with all his might. 

The secret of Garfield was very much the same 
as that of Abraham Lincoln. I once had a long 
day's talk about Abraham Lincoln with a friend in 
Kentucky, who had lived in intimate relation with 
Lincoln when the latter was a young lawyer in 
Springfield, just beginning business. He said that 
Lincoln gave to every case he took his whole interest 



12 E VERY-DAY RE LI GI OX. 

and attention. Once he had to argue a case in 
which all depended on finding the right boundary 
for a piece of land on the prairie. There are no 
stones there for boundaries, and few trees, so the 
surveyors were in the habit of indicating the corners 
of the lots by shovelling up a little heap of earth. 
But it happens that a prairie squirrel, or gopher, 
does the same thing. Hence it becomes important 
to distinguish between the mounds made by the 
surveyor and those made by the gopher. Lincoln 
sent to New York for books which would tell him 
of the habits of the gopher, brought them into 
court, showed the judge and jury how the gopher 
built his mound, how it differed from that of the 
surveyor, and after he had won his case, sat up late 
in the night still studying about the gopher, so as 
to be sure to know all about him. He, also, did 
with his might what he had to do. 
Such men are nob 

" Longing, not forever sighing 
For the far-off, the unattained. the dim." 

They take what their hand finds, as sent to them by 
God, — the duty of the hour, the simple pleasures, 
innocent and pure, of common things which round 
us lie. Mr. Emerson said in his first book: "Give 
me health and a day, and I will make the pomp of 
emperors ridiculous. The dawn is my Assyria ; the 
sunset and moonrise my Paphos and fairy-realm ; 
broad noon my England of the senses and under- 



HOW TO MAKE THE MOST OF LIFE. 13 

standing ; the night shall be my Germany of poetic 
philosophy and dreams." 

Ealph Waldo Emerson is another striking in- 
stance in our times of a man who made the most 
of life. He proved the truth of his own saying, 
" Let the single man plant himself on his instincts, 
and the huge world will come round to him." 
He had two leading ideas, by which he lived, and 
which he taught to his age. One of them was 
" Self-reliance," the other " God-reliance." Trust in 
your own deep and permanent convictions, though 
the whole world insist that you are wrong. " Call 
a pop-gun a pop-gun, though the ancient and hon- 
orable declare it to be the crack of doom." He 
believed in that which was highest, and did that 
which was nearest, following the suggestive lines 
of Wordsworth : — 

" The primal duties shine aloft like stars ; 
The charities which soothe and bless and save, 
Are scattered at the feet of man like flowers." 

Pursuing his own way quietly, trusting in the in- 
tuitions of his soul, saying his own words, not those 
of any one else, accepting the present moment with 
its immediate inspiration, and believing in an over- 
hanging heaven and an infinite spiritual presence, 
Emerson did with hi3 might what his hand found 
to do, and saw the great world come round to him. 
Trust in God and your own soul, is the fourth 
rule. 



14 E VERY-DAY RELIGION. 

I have described conspicuous persons, because in 
such lives principles of action are made most evi- 
dent. But it must not be supposed that they have 
any monopoly of this " Art of life." If you will only 
consider, you will remember many a person of whom 
the world never heard and will never hear, whose 
years have been as full of generosity, loyalty to 
duty, faith in God, fidelity to every day's work, as 
those of Franklin or Garfield, Lincoln or Emerson. 
They, also, have put their hands to the plough and 
have not looked back. Having made up their 
minds to what ought to be done, they did not hesi- 
tate, did not procrastinate, did not worry or grow 
anxious, but faithfully performed the duty of the 
hour. They had faith in Providence, and so did 
with their might what their hands found to do. 
They gave, and it was given to them again, " full 
measure, pressed down and running over." They 
did good, hoping for nothing again, and the reward 
came in lives full of content ; in cheerfulness, peace, 
and satisfaction. 



II. 



THE FAMILY IN HEAVEN AND 
EARTH. 



II. 

THE FAMILY IN HEAVEN AND EARTH. 



THE doctrine of Correspondences, as taught by 
Swedenborg, contains much truth. This, at 
least, is true, that there is not only a resemblance 
between material and spiritual things, but that the 
one is the natural sign of the other. The facts 
of outward nature signify other facts of the soul. 
Thus, in all languages, light stands for knowledge. 
We speak of brilliant ideas, an illuminated intellect, 
the shining forth of truth. So heat, in all time, has 
signified affection, or feeling. We say warm affec- 
tions, hot desires, burning love, fiery passions, and 
the like. In the same way physical forces in the 
outward world correspond to will, purpose, deter- 
mination of spirit. We say an iron will, a strong 
purpose, a powerful determination. The three 
dimensions of space — height, depth, and width — 
are types of aspiration, of reflection, and of expe- 
rience. We say deep thoughts, lofty purposes, a 
broad experience. This is what is meant by types. 
The physical world is full of types of the mental 
world. We use these symbolic expressions many 

2 



18 EVERY-DAY RELIGION. 

times a day, and we never confound them together. 
We do not say hot ideas, but hot passions ; we do 
not compare a man's thoughts to a rock, but his 
firmness of purpose we say is like a rock. Thus 
the visible heaven and earth around us are types 
of the invisible world within us. I do not see 
the value of all of Swedenborg's correspondences. 
When he says that a cloud means divine truth in 
the ultimates, or that a horse means meditation on 
the word, I am not able to understand him. " But I 
can easily believe that the whole outward universe 
is the expression of God's thoughts, and can say 
with Milton, — 

" What if earth 
Be but the shadow of heaven, and things therein 
Each to the other like, more than below is thought ? " 

One of these analogues is the human body as a 
type of that social body which we call the State. 
The human body is composed of little cells ; and 
so society is composed of families. The family is 
to the State what the cell is to the body. And 
then as each type may suggest again another and 
higher resemblance, the human family becomes the 
type of the religious communion of souls. 

" The whole family in heaven and earth." When 
the Apostle Paul said that, he had a wonderful 
vision of the future. That all this earth should 
be one, human nature one, mankind one family, — 
that was a new idea, and a vast one. 



THE FAMILY IN HEAVEN AND EARTH 19 

Christianity came to make mankind one. At the 
very first we notice this approaching unity. " The 
multitude of those who believed were of one heart 
and one soul ; neither said they that anything 
they possessed was their own, but they had all 
things common." There were men of many races, 
" Parthians, Medes, Elamites, dwellers in Mesopo- 
tamia, in Pontus and Phrygia, Greeks, and Eomans." 
But the power of divine and human love had made 
of them a family. The partition walls of race, 
nation, color, fell down, and they became in spirit 
one. 

But Paul's wonderful vision did not stop there. It 
was not only a family on earth, created by Christ, 
but also a family in heaven ; one and the same ; a 
vast family of the redeemed above and below. 

But to have one family we must have many fami- 
lies. As the life of the tree consists of life in innu- 
merable buds, as the life of the body is made up of 
innumerable living cells, so the family on earth is 
made up of innumerable families. The family in 
heaven, according to this law, must also be made 
up of innumerable families. Earthly life is the 
type of heavenly life. If we would know what 
the life is there, we must look at the best life here. 
A true, ideal family on earth is the type of heaven. 
Let us, then, ask what is the highest form of family 
life below. What is an ideal family ? 

The ideal family is one in which there is the 
father and mother, the brothers and sisters, the aged 



20 E VERY-DAY RELIGION. 

grandfather and grandmother, the infant in its cra- 
dle, the kind aunts and uncles and cousins. So the 
family is formed, having a life of its own, — many 
members, but one body. 

This family is full of love. All the members are 
mutually attached and dependent. Each cares for 
the other. They have their separate interests and 
work, but they bring together the results of what 
they think and do. They go out for their various 
occupations, but come back to repose and rest in a 
mutual interest and a mutual trust. 

The family also is an ideal one when it is per- 
vaded by ideas. If we enter a home where there 
are aspirations, hopes, generous thoughts, interest 
in great themes, care for others, then family life 
begins to be glorified, and to take on the character 
of a Christian church. 

How happy is the child who grows up in a com- 
plete family ; who is surrounded by loving care from 
the beginning ; who has not only the father and 
mother always near, but sees around brothers and 
sisters and cousins ; uncles and aunts ; relatives, 
neighbors, friends ! He has already in his soul a 
type of the true church and the coming heaven. 

But more is needed to make a true family. A 
home is needed. The family in heaven and earth 
needs a home. 

What is a home ? It is a place made sacred by 
happy associations ; it is comfort, safety, a retreat 
from outside trouble ; it is the region where peace 



THE FAMILY IN HEAVEN AND EARTH. 21 

should always abide. Such a home every family 
needs. 

Three things go to make a home. These three 
are, first, the roof; second, the table; third, the 
parlor. 

There is the roof — that is, the home as shelter. 
The first thing which we see around us as children 
is this shelter. The foxes have holes, and the birds 
have nests, but man has more ; his home is shelter, 
security, peace, comfort. To a child the house he 
lives in, from garret to cellar, is interesting. The 
garret is the child's museum of curiosities, and the 
cellar is his unexplored region of wonders. At least 
it used to be so, though I am afraid that modern 
architectural improvements have banished the genu- 
ine old-fashioned garret and cellar bv letting order 
into the one and light into the other. But in my 
childhood the garret was a great storehouse of curi- 
osities, dusty bundles of newspapers from the last 
century, the antiquated smokejaek which used to 
turn our meat, helmets and crimson sashes from 
the Eevolution, side-saddles and high-heeled shoes 
belonging to belles of past times. And the old- 
fashioned cellar, as I remember it, had its dark 
recesses and hidden chambers, into the inmost of 
which the boldest of us dared not venture. Homes 
in those days seemed solid, and meant to last. 
They were not bought and sold at every caprice, 
but were the abiding-place of many generations. 

The roof is the shelter of the family. When the 



22 E VERY-DAY RELIGION. 

winter storm rages without ; when the sleet beats 
against the window, and the snow lies heavy 
around; within blazes the cheerful fire, and the 
family gathers around it in security and peace. 

The soul also needs a roof, a shelter; and the 
Church, in its largest sense, is the shelter of the 
soul. Jesus gave this large definition of the Church 
when he said, "If two or three meet together in 
my name, I am in the midst of them." A thousand 
people meeting in the name of fashion, of estab- 
lished usage, of vanity, do not make a church. A 
creed and liturgy do not make a church. But 
where two really meet in the spirit of Christ, there 
is a church. There the soul finds shelter, com- 
fort, peace, a home ; and Christ is present to 
protect and inspire, to uplift and cheer. This is 
divine overarching roof, the dome of the spiritual 
heaven. 

Another element which unites the family in its 
home is the table. It is a distinction of civilized 
man to eat in company. Animals eat alone, when 
and where they can. Savages often eat alone. 
But the common table is the fruit of civilization. 
Twice or three times a day the members of the 
household collect and sit opposite to each other at 
a common meal. How much does not this add to 
the intimacy and union of a household ! To break 
bread together is a sacrament of friendship among 
all nations. In that family which we call a church 
is also this meeting together for food. The Church 



THE FAMILY IN HEAVEN AND EARTH. 23 

spreads its table on the Lord's Day, and offers food 
to the mind and heart in its prayers and hymns, its 
Scripture and its sermons. It spreads another table 
in its literature, its religious biographies, its jour- 
nals, its sacred histories, its sacred poetry, its books 
of edification and instruction. It spreads a table 
for the young in its Sunday school. Its social 
meetings and conferences offer food in still another 
way, so that every mind and heart shall be satisfied. 
This table of the Church comprises a]l its means 
of edification. But here again let us distinguish 
between the technical church and the true church. 
If we go to church and hear dogmas, or literary 
essays, or philosophical discussions, or severe at- 
tacks on other churches, or assaults on unbelievers, 
what does it profit ? " The hungry sheep look up, 
and are not fed." But the church which feeds 
the soul is one in which we are helped to feel the 
presence and love of God in the world ; to know 
the grandeur of our human life, the nobleness of 
living for others, and the certain triumph of truth 
over error, right over wrong, good over evil. That 
is the food we need, — food for conscience, heart, 
and life, to make us strong for our work, to comfort 
us in our sorrow, to enable us to see heaven near 
while we walk on earth. 

The Lord's Supper is the symbol of the food 
which Christ and Christianity supply to the human 
mind and heart. We eat a piece of bread and drink 
a little wine as an expression of our faith that 



24 E VERY-DAY RELIGION. 

Christ's life and death feed our souls with strength 
and joy. All should thus unite who have this faith. 
It is not for church members only, but for all 
Christians. It is not for the good and holy, for 
pious persons only, any more than prayer and 
public worship is for them only. Just as in a 
family all the members come together, old and 
young, to the breakfast-table, even to the little child 
sitting in his hierh. chair, so to the table of the Lord 
all should come, even the youngest and humblest 
Christian who yet claims Jesus as his teacher, 
friend, and Saviour. 

The third thing which characterizes every home 
is, that it is a sphere of activity and centre of com- 
munion, of which the parlor (or keeping-room, as it 
is called in the country) is the focus. From this 
the family go out, each to his work or pleasure ; to 
this they all return, and communicate what they 
have gained. Every home is the centre of a circle, 
and these circles overlap each other, so that one 
circle catches into another, and thus society is made 
up of many little family circles, which are linked in 
and in with each other. So in the old coats of mail 
each ring of steel was interlinked with two or three 
others. Every child and man living; in a home and 
family is thus introduced to surrounding homes and 
families, and brought into a communion of work, 
of study, of thought, of social sympathy and inter- 
course. And thus every church ought to be a circle 
interlinked with other surrounding churches, and 



THE FAMILY IN HEAVEN AND EARTH. 25 

so tending to make a Christian society, a church 
universal. 

The old town-life of New England was like one 
great family. Some of us have seen the memoir 
of a lady who lived in a town on the Connecticut 
Eiver some fifty years ago, before railroads existed, 
and when a journey to Boston was a serious affair. 
That book shows how every one in the town knew 
every one else. It was a matter of course that 
every one should visit every one else. If one 
member suffered, all suffered ; if one rejoiced, all 
were happy. 

The ideal school is also like a family. When a 
school is governed like an army, and discipline is 
the chief element, there is a low type of school. As 
it approaches to family life it rises. This was the 
ideal of Pestalozzi, to make a school like a family ; 
and all educational reform since his time has been 
in that direction. 

The ideal church is like a family. A church 
which is governed like an army, where discipline 
is the chief element, belongs to a low type. A 
church which approaches family life rises higher 
and higher. Such was the Church at first, when we 
read that " the multitude of them that believed were 
of one heart and one soul; neither said any one that 
aught that he possessed was his own, but they had 
all things common." A true church ought to seem 
like a home, and all within it to be like brothers 
and sisters. 



26 E VERY-DAY RELIGION. 

The great religious reform introduced by Jesus, 
and which has lifted all human society to a higher 
level, which saved Soman civilization from utter 
ruin, which tamed Xorthern barbarism, and united 
warrins races into a new league of Christian States, 
had its root and its essence in this idea, that all 
mankind are one family. It consisted in the con- 
viction that God is our Father, and therefore to 
be obeyed and loved ; that Jesus is the Christ be- 
cause he is " the Son," the best illustration of true 
filial love to God ; and that humanity is a brother- 
hood. In this lies the essence of the great Christian 
faith and life, — the conviction that there is one 
family in heaven and earth. 

Therefore, the first and fundamental conviction 
in Christianity is, that God is our Father. We are 
his family, and he is the Father of the household. 
Jesus did not invent the term as applied to God, 
but he introduced the spirit of filial thought when 
he said, "Our Father who art in heaven;" "My 
Father worketh hitherto." He was thought irrever- 
ent by the people around him in being so familiar 
with the infinite and almighty God. But it was 
the familiarity born of trust and love, and it has 
made the world new. 

I lately received a tract called " Hell," published 
in Scotland, the object of which is to persuade us 
by the usual theological logic, based on a bald lit- 
eralism, that God is to punish forever those of his 
children who do not pass through some experience 



THE FAMILY IN HEAVEN AND EARTH. 27 

considered necessary by those who call themselves 
evangelical. The reply to such arguments is an 
answer taught by the Master. " What man is there 
among you, being a father," who could do this ? 
What father, unless insane with cruelty, would tor- 
ture his child forever in a hell where he could get 
no good ? What man of only a decent feeling of 
responsibility would wish to create a child who could 
plunge himself into such irreparable ruin ? Many a 
man is called an atheist whose utterances are less 
irreligious than this. If any one said of you that 
you had constructed a furnace into which to put 
your children, and had invented a way of prolong- 
ing their lives and their sufferings forever, would 
you not be indignant at such an outrageous accu- 
sation ? But this is exactly what believers in ever- 
lasting punishment teach concerning the Almighty, 
whom they profess to worship. I think I hear 
Jesus saying of such teachers, "Father, forgive 
them, for they know not what they do ! " 

I am not now making an appeal to human reason. 
I am using the argument that our Master has used 
before. When he wished to convince the disciples 
that God would give his spirit in answer to prayer, 
he did not assert it on his own authority; he did 
not demand their assent because of his supernatural 
character ; he did not say, " Believe me, for I am 
inspired, and sent by God to teach you." No ; but 
he argued from the character of a human father to 
that of a divine father. He said, "What man is 



28 E VERY-DAY RELIGION. 

there among you who, if his son asks bread, will he 
give him a stone ? If ye, being evil, know how to 
give good gifts to your children, how much more 
will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those 
who ask him." Thus he authorized us to argue from 
the finite goodness of an earthly father to the infi- 
nite goodness of the heavenly Father. He taught 
us to look through earthly love to find heavenly 
love. 

In the teaching of Jesus this profound convic- 
tion, this fixed habit of always seeing God as a Fa- 
ther, is the idea which determines all other beliefs. 
No doctrine can be true in Christianity which re- 
gards the Deity otherwise than as a Father. Chris- 
tianity develops itself out of this centre of life. If 
you wish to know how God will feel and act, how 
he will regard any act of yours, you must ask, How 
would a good and wise father feel or act in like 
circumstances ? 

Thus true family life is everywhere the germ out 
of which the higher life comes. It is the seed of 
the true school, the true neighborhood, the true 
church, and the heaven beyond. Everything which 
makes family life better helps the Church and the 
State. Let us, then, cherish and purify the family ; 
let us improve the household and home; let us 
bring all good influences to bear on these centres of 
progress, and we shall be doing the Lord's work. 

There will, no doubt, be families in heaven, 
groups of angels living together, homes of peace, 



THE FAMILY IN HEAVEN AND EARTH. 29 

joy, and love. There, as here, there will be the shel- 
ter, the table, the place of communion. Those who 
are bound by affinities of love and thought will 
dwell together and work together. These families 
will be separate, but not divided nor solitary. They 
will be joined into one greater family, and the love 
and peace of God will make them one. There the 
friendship and love of earth will be purified and 
elevated; there we shall be known as we really 
are ; there all misunderstandings will cease ; there 
Jesus, the Christ, shall come near to every one of 
his followers, and all will be at one in him. 



III. 



THE RELIGION WHICH PASSES AWAY, 
AND THAT WHICH ABIDES. 



III. 



THE KELIGION WHICH PASSES AWAY, 
AND* THAT WHICH ABIDES. 



TN every century since Christ came there have 
-*■ been those who predicted the speedy downfall 
of his religion. It would be curious to collect a 
catena, or chain, of such statements. There always 
have been opposers of the gospel of Jesus, who be- 
lieved that its power was exhausted, its life coming 
to an end, and that some larger, deeper, better form 
of religion was arriving to take its place. Gnosti- 
cism, Manicheeism, New-Platonism, Mohammedan- 
ism, poured in successive waves of thought over 
Christendom. But always the ark, which bore the 
simple story of Jesus, rose anew, and floated above 
the deluge ; always the sun of righteousness poured 
out again its light and heat over the world of 
human life and human thought. 

Christianity, as to its essence, survives all the 
storms of time; but Christianity, as to its forms, 
changes from age to age. It leaves behind many 
things which once seemed to be important, but 

3 



34 E VERY-DAY RELIGION. 

which are found to be unnecessary and unessential. 
The ceremonies and ritual, formerly believed vital, 
have come to an end ; the creeds of the early centu- 
ries are outgrown. Our religion may say, as Paul 
said, " When I was a child, I spake as a child, I 
understood as a child, I thought as a child; but 
when I became a man, I put away childish things." 
Many widespread beliefs of the Church were child- 
ish beliefs, and have been forgotten. It believed 
the world was coming to a speedy end ; that Christ 
was coming immediately to judge the living and the 
dead. Figurative expressions were taken literally. 
Men, it was said, were saved by being baptized, 
and by the other sacraments. The Pope had the 
keys of heaven and hell. All these opinions were 
transient ; and as one after another disappeared, 
many supposed that Christianity was disappearing 
too. So " the burning of a little straw on the earth 
may hide for a time the everlasting stars ; but the 
stars are there, and will reappear." 

Paul states, in a very broad way, that all religious 
beliefs are transient, none permanent. "Whether 
there be knowledge, it shall vanish away. We 
know in part, and teach in part; but when that 
which is perfect is come, then that which is in part 
shall be done away." He thus proclaims very dis- 
tinctly what has been regarded as a discovery of 
modern thought, — the doctrine of "the relativity 
of knowledge." This,, however, does not mean 
that all truth is transient, but that our forms of 



RELIGION, TRANSIENT AND PERMANENT. 35 

expressing truth change. Faith holds to the eternal 
truth behind all statements ; and thus faith abides, 
while belief changes. 

The conviction, once universal, in the reality of 
witchcraft has passed away. The similar belief in 
possession by demons has gone by. The confidence, 
attested by much evidence, that the king's touch 
could cure disease, has disappeared. Persecution 
for opinion's sake, once thought a duty both by 
Eoman Catholics and Protestants, has virtually come 
to an end in both religions. Other opinions are 
following fast after these. Many of those which 
were once held to be so orthodox that no man could 
be saved who did not believe them, are neglected 
and forgotten. No one is so poor as to do them 
reverence. They still remain imbedded in the old 
creeds, like fossils in some ancient stratum of rock, 
to show us what sort of monsters once inhabited 
our earth. The Athanasian Creed, which the law of 
England requires to be said or sung several times a 
year in the churches, declares that those who do not 
believe its mediaeval statements about the Trinity 
"shall, without doubt, perish everlastingly." But 
not many years ago, in a meeting of the bishops 
of the Church of England, the Archbishop of Can- 
terbury said that he supposed not one of the bishops 
present believed in that damnatory clause, and no 
one said that he did. Yet a short time ago some 
of my family, attending a service in a children's 
hospital in London, heard the little children sing 



36 E VERY-DAY RELIGION. 

sweetly that those who did not believe the Trinity 
should, without doubt, perish everlastingly. So far, 
the Church of England has not put away childish 
things. 

o 

Other doctrines, worse than this, are fast passing 
away. The doctrine that the heathen, who make 
three fourths of the human race, must necessarily 
be punished everlastingly, is now becoming obnox- 
ious to the orthodox believer. He still holds to 
the doctrine that no one can be saved except by 
faith in Christ. Therefore the heathen, who never 
have heard of Christ, must, as it would seem, per- 
ish everlastingly. " Not so," replies modern ortho- 
doxy, " for they may have a probation in the other 
life." I observe that the Boston Monday lecturer 
met the difficulty in a more rational and liberal 
way. He declared that every man has in his con- 
science a revelation of Christ, and therefore the 
heathen who believe in the teachings of their con- 
science, and obey its laws, are really accepting and 
obeying Christ. And this view would seem to 
accord remarkably well with the account of the 
Day of Judgment given by Jesus himself (in the 
twenty-sixth chapter of Matthew), when he says 
that all the heathen shall be gathered before him, 
and that the test applied shall be this : " Did they, 
or did they not, feed the hungry, clothe the naked, 
be hospitable to the stranger, and visit the sick and 
the prisoner ? " By and by, perhaps, the Christian 
Church may advance so far as to believe Christ's 



RELIGION, TRANSIENT AND PERMANENT. 37 

own account of the principles of probation and 
judgment. 

Another belief which is passing away is that of 
the infallible inspiration of the whole Bible. A 
curious instance of this is to be found in a late issue 
of " The Independent," a New York liberal-orthodox 
journal. There are in this number two articles. 
One of them declares it to be a sign of the down- 
ward tendency of Unitarianism that it has no ade- 
quate faith in the Bible. This article objects to 
Uuitariaus that they put the Bible on a level with 
other books, when they ought to regard both the 
Old and New Testaments as the only and infallible 
rule of faith and practice. The other article is upon 
a life of Jesus, by a German theologian, Bernard 
Weiss, whom it praises as the most thorough and 
excellent of modern critics. The writer of this 
article agrees with Weiss that the theory of verbal 
inspiration is an unnatural one; declares that the 
differences in the four Gospels cannot be reconciled 
by any theory of inspiration, and tells us that the 
Gospels are to be viewed as human writings, though, 
as they were written by the apostles or their pu- 
pils, they are essentially credible. But he adds 
that our Christian belief would remain the same 
if we did not possess the Gospels, but only the 
Epistles. 

"Whether there be knowledge, it shall vanish 
away." So declares the Apostle Paul, pushing the 
subsoil plough of his philosophy so deep as to turn 



38 E VERY-DAY RELIGION. 

up all the weeds of bigotry by the roots. All 
statements are partial and incomplete ; therefore 
all statements are provisional and temporary. All 
creeds, all beliefs, must pass away, his own included. 
"We know in part, and we teach in part ; but when 
that which is perfect is come, then that which is in 
part shall be done away." This is what Paul says 
about his own teaching. It is not infallibly, abso- 
lutely, and forever true ; only true in part, and one 
day to be swallowed up in larger knowledge. Mean- 
time his followers imagine that their little ways of 
thinking and speaking are altogether and forever 
certain, so that whoever does not accept them " shall, 
without doubt, perish everlastingly." 

There is something solemn, something sad, in this 
decay and change of what men have believed ; this 
passing away of beliefs and opinions in which they 
treasured their religious life. Sad it is to see the 
decline of great dynasties, the fall of mighty em- 
pires, — "Assyria, Greece, Borne, Carthage, where 
are they ? " — but still more sad to stand on the 
summit of ecclesiastical history and see what world- 
wide doctrines have sunk in the fast-rolling current 
of years. Where is the great belief that Christ 
was soon to come outwardly in the visible heavens 
to judge the world in majesty and glory? This 
notion, once universal, sustained the souls of those 
who were persecuted for conscience' sake, and was 
comfort to the hearts of the noble army of martyrs. 
Yet it has gone, and gone forever. We now see 



RELIGION, TRANSIENT AND PERMANENT. 39 

that Christ comes in the spirit of his religion, in 
the progress of mankind, in the emancipation of 
the slaves, in tender humanities toward the suffer- 
ing. Wherever a new effort is made to soften the 
hard lot of the weak and the oppressed, that is the 
coming of Christ. He comes in the spirit of all 
philanthropies and humanities. When the blind are 
taught to see through the tips of their fingers ; 
when the deaf are made to hear by reading from 
the movements of the lips ; when the miseries of 
war are alleviated by the Sanitary Commission ; 
when the poor are helped by co-operative associa- 
tions ; when Mr. Brace sends the children out of 
the streets of New York to happy homes in the 
West ; when Aunty Gwynne takes little orphans 
to her warm heart ; when our friends, Miss Botunie, 
Miss Towne, Miss Bradley, and others go to teach 
the negro children at the South ; when General 
Armstrong educates the Indians, — when thus the 
blind are made to see and the deaf to hear, and the 
dead in mind and heart are rarsed to life, that is 
known to be the real coming of Christ. The old 
belief has passed away, that a better one may 
take its place. The old belief was a compromise 
with Judaism, which taught that Christ's kingdom 
was of this world, one of outward power and splen- 
dor. It thought that Jesus is to come hereafter as 
an outward king, with visible pomp and splendor, 
though at present his kingdom is inward and spirit- 
ual. But now we see that Christ always comes by 



40 EVERY-DAY RELIGION. 

his spiritual presence in the mind and heart ; that 
his joy is to reign in souls redeemed and sins for- 
given ; and that it would add nothing at all to his 
true glory to be made the visible monarch of the 
outward universe. 

But the timid are alarmed at the sioht of all 
these changes, and are afraid lest Christianity it- 
self should pass away too. "Is there anything 
certain ? " they ask ; " anything stable and firm, any- 
thing to which we may cling, any anchor that will 
hold?" The apostle answers, Yes, three things, 
faith, hope, and love. "Now abideth faith, hope, 
aud love, these three; but the greatest of these is 
love." 

There are many, I know, to whom faith seems 
much less substantial, much less permanent, than 
knowledge. They imagine it to be the same thing 
as credulity, something quite unscientific. Those 
who walk by faith are regarded as weak-minded 
people, who believe, not what is true, but what is 
agreeable. They are supposed to believe in God, 
Christ, and immortality, not on evidence, not be- 
cause these are realities, but because such beliefs 
are comforting and pleasant. 

But the truth is that faith is the very life of the 
intellect, the essential condition of all knowledge. 
All that we know rests on the solid foundation 
of trust. Trust in certain, immutable convictions, 
confidence in the veracity of our own faculties, re- 
liance on the corresponding veracity of our fellow- 



RELIGION, TRANSIENT AND PERMANENT. 41 

creatures, a profound faith in the stable order of the 
universe and the reign of universal law, — all this 
is faith, not knowledge. But without it knowledge 
were impossible. We must all begin by trusting 
our own faculties. We trust our senses. When 
we open our eyes and see the sun, the earth, the 
ocean, the faces of men and women, we believe that 
they are realities. This is an act of faith. When 
we hear the melodies of winds and woods and 
waters, the tones of affection, the words which 
bring to us comfort and peace, we rely on the re- 
ality of all this. Our senses may deceive us, yet 
we trust in them. We trust in our higher faculties ; 
we believe the reports which consciousness gives 
to us of our own identity and personality, of the 
reality of right and wrong, good and evil, time and 
space, beauty, order, immortal truth. Thus faith 
is the foundation on which our knowledge rests, — 
faith in things unseen, behind and below whatever 
is seen. 

All human action, all good endeavor, all the 
progress of civilization, is the work of faith. In 
the eleventh chapter of the Epistle to the Hebrews 
the writer says that " by faith " Abraham, Isaac, 
Jacob, and all the great heroes of Israel accom- 
plished their noble deeds. So it has been ever 
since. By faith the Apostle Paul crossed the 
iEgean Sea, and went from Asia to Europe to con- 
vert a new world to Christ. By faith the mission- 
aries of the gospel went among the savage Goths 



42 E VERY-DAY RELIGION. 

and Vandals with the same divine purpose, and 
saved Koman civilization from ruin. By faith, in 
later days, the Jesuits went among the North 
American Indians, and Livingstone among the 
African barbarians, not counting their lives dear, 
so that they might finish their course with joy. 
By faith Coster invented the printing-press; by 
faith Watt discovered the steam-engine, Stephenson 
the locomotive, Daguerre the sun-portraits. By 
faith Howard reformed the prisons ; Wesley gave 
spiritual life to the lowest classes in England ; 
Clarkson and Wilberforce abolished the slave-trade ; 
Garrison and Abraham Lincoln put an end to 
slavery in the United States. By faith Dr. Howe 
penetrated into the darkness of Laura Bridgman's 
mind and carried knowledge there. By faith Chan- 
ning, Bushnell, and Theodore Parker shook the 
pillars of irrational belief. By faith Bobertson 
and Stanley gave a larger life to the Church of 
England. 

Thus we see that faith abides, — faith in truths 
as yet unseen, in laws not yet discovered, in great 
realities outside of our present vision. All human 
knowledge, human endeavor, earthly progress, de- 
pends on faith that beyond what we know there 
is a great world of truth and good still to be dis- 
covered. 

And this is, in reality, faith in God. For God 
is the eternal Truth, the omniscient Good. He is 
behind all things, before all things, and above all 



RELIGION, TRANSIENT AND PERMANENT 43 

things. We do not see him, but faith leads directly 
and inevitably to him. 

Thus faith is like the primitive granite of our 
New England. Dig down deep and you come to it, 
below all superimposed strata. Go to the summit 
of the highest mountains and you find it, on the 
loftiest elevations. Faith begins as the basis of the 
infant's knowledge ; it ends in leading us to know 
God, Christ, and immortality. Thus it abides with 
us always, the constant companion of our discovery 
and our knowledge. 

And the child of faith is hope, equally immortal. 
Why do we believe in progress ? Why do we try 
to make the world better ? Why do men expect to 
improve their condition ? It is because God has 
placed within the human heart this boundless ex- 
pectation of something better to-morrow than we 
have to-day. The best evidence that there will be 
progress in this world and in the world to come is 
this, that hope is an abiding element in human 
nature. On this instinct rests, in a large degree, our 
belief in immortality, and a reunion with the loved 
and the lost in some better world beyond. And it 
is no delusion, no mere imagination, born of empty 
wishes. It rests on an immutable, unchangeable 
law of human nature planted in the soul by the 
Creator. It is more convincing than any argument, 
more reasonable than the most subtle logic. It 
says, " death, where is thy sting ? grave, 
where is thy victory ? " 



44 E VERY-DAY RELIGION. 

11 Upon the frontier of this shadowy land 
"We, pilgrims of eternal sorrow, stand ; 
What realm lies forward with its happier shore, 

With forests green and deep, 

With valleys hushed in sleep, 
And lakes most peaceful 1 'T is the land of evermore." 

But best and most blessed of all abiding things 
is love. Love is the spirit of life, and makes all 
things live. Without love, life is not worth living. 
It is in the first look of intelligence which, we 
discover in the infant's eye ; it is in the last feeble 
pressure of the hand of the dying. Nothing is so 
real as this ; it alone has solidity, substance, and 
essential being. Selfishness is not enduring ; in its 
very nature it destroys itself. The selfish man is 
only half alive. He sits alone, in a cold isolation 
of soul. 

In all religions the most essential part is love. 
Christianity is the highest of all, because it sums 
up its whole law in these two articles, " Love God, 
and love man." Jesus does not say, " Believe this 
and that about God, about me, about sin and salva- 
tion." But he says, " Love God with all your heart, 
and your neighbor as yourself." And amid all the 
changes of creeds, the strife of parties, the reforms 
and revolutions of the Church, this has been one 
of the unchanging factors. ~No heresy ever denied 
love; no papal decree ever denounced piety and 
humanity. Amid all these storms love continued ; 
love had its abode in many an humble home, in 



RELIGION, TRANSIENT AND PERMANENT. 45 

many a meek and trusting heart. In the hardest 
and most cruel days love prompted men and women 
to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, visit the pris- 
oner, redeem the slave, cleanse the leper, and bring 
comfort to the forlorn. 

Love abides. This is the very essence of Chris- 
tianity, the soul within its soul. And this blessed 
gift comes direct from God. When the poor woman 
knelt at the feet of Jesus, he said, " She loves much 
because she has been forgiven much." Love is born 
out of our sin when we look to God for pardon, and 
find his comfort and peace descending into our 
heart. " We love him because he first loved us." 
There have been forms of Christian belief which 
represented God not as the universal Father, but as 
the inflexible Judge, who dooms to everlasting woe 
myriads of the creatures he has himself created. 
We cannot love such a being as this. Therefore 
the Church sometimes has substituted as the objects 
of its affection the Christ who took pity on our woe 
and came to redeem us, and the Blessed Virgin, who 
was represented as still more merciful than Christ. 

But the hour cometh, and now is, when the true 
worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and 
in truth. The hour cometh when it will be seen 
that God is the best friend we have in the universe, 
and that he wishes us to trust in him always, and 
to pour out our souls before him. 

These, then, are the unchanging, unalterable facts 
of Christianity. Faith is the foundation : faith in 



46 E VERY-DAY RELIGION. 

God as an infinite Friend; faith in Christ as the 
way, the truth, and the life ; faith in ourselves as 
the children of God, whom he loves, and who, there- 
fore, must have something in us worth loving. And 
hope, always reaching forward, seeking, praying, 
working for a kingdom of heaven to come below, 
for a kingdom of God to begin here and continue 
hereafter. And love, the bright consummate flower 
of human life, that which is essentially and forever 
divine, which makes us one with God and at peace 
in our own souls. Faith is the foundation on which 
our knowledge rests ; Hope is the motive-power 
urging us forward from good to better; and Love 
the heaven within, which makes a heaven around 
us evermore. 



IV. 
EMPHASIS IN RELIGION AND LIFE. 



IV. 

EMPHASIS IN RELIGION AND LIFE. 



WE all recognize the importance of true em- 
phasis in speech and reading. A person 
who reads or speaks without emphasis is monoto- 
nous, and monotony wearies. A person who has 
too much emphasis in his speech also wearies us ; 
by emphasizing everything, important or unimpor- 
tant, he makes every part of his sentence equally 
important, therefore equally ^important. Em- 
phasis placed on the wrong word changes the 
meaning of the passage. Or, as is more frequently 
the case, there may be different modes of empha- 
sizing a sentence, all more or less correct, but 
some better than the others. Thus in pronouncing 
a sentence consisting of only two words, in the play 
of " Macbeth," it is said that Mrs. Siddons changed 
her mode of emphasizing them twice. It is in the 
scene where Macbeth and his wife are discussing 
the murder of the old king. Macbeth says, " If we 
should fail ? » Lady Macbeth replies, " We fail ! " 
She first emphasized "fail," uttering these words 
as though failure were impossible — " We fail ! " 

4 



50 E WRY-DAY RELIGION. 

Afterwards she emphasized the " we," as though 
failure by such people as they was impossible — 
" We fail ! " Finally she found a still better em- 
phasis, implying that if they failed, they failed, and 
that was the end of it — " We fail." 

Nothing needs more care and emphasis in reading 
than the Bible. If emphasis can change the very 
meaning of a passage, substituting a false meaning 
for a true one, or one less true for one of more im- 
portance, it is clear that even an inspired book loses 
its inspiration if read the wrong way. The same 
passage, read by different persons, may mean differ- 
ent things. A bad reader may change the sense of 
the words of Paul, or the words of Christ himself, 
and make them say what was not intended. Or, 
what happens more frequently, a poor emphasis 
may leave the sense vague and obscure, while a dif- 
ferent stress on the words will make the meaning 
simple and clear. Indeed, a wrong emphasis may 
change the sense as much as a wrong translation. 

Take that familiar passage from Paul commonly 
read thus : Cf If it be possible, as much as lieth in 
you, live peaceably with all men." The meaning 
then is that no man can always be peaceful, even 
in his own spirit. But suppose we emphasize the 
" you." " If it be possible, as much as lieth in 
you, live peaceably with all men." Then it would 
mean that you can, at any rate, be peaceable toward 
others, though you may not be able ahvays to make 
them peaceable toward you. 



EMPHASIS IN RELIGION AND LIFE. 51 

When Paul says, " We are laborers together with 
God ; ye are God's husbandry ; ye are God's build- 
ing" how much deeper does the meaning become 
by laying the emphasis on " God." " Ye are God's 
husbandry ; ye are God's building." 

In another place Paul says, " Receive us ; we have 
ivronged no man, we have defrauded no man." But 
the true meaning appears by a little change of em- 
phasis, " Eeceive us ; we have wronged no man, ive 
have defrauded no man," for thev were receiving 
those who had wronged and defrauded, and yet 
would not receive him. 

"All things are for your sakes, that the abundant 
grace might, through the thanksgiving of many, 
redound to the glory of God." If the emphasis be 
laid on the three words, " abundant," " many," and 
"redound," how much more full of meaning the 
passage becomes ! 

In the last conversation of Jesus with his disciples 
there is a passage which we often hear read thus : 
" Now, ye are clean through the word that I have 
spoken to you. Abide in me, and I in you." But 
read it thus : " Now, ye are clean through the ivord 
that I have spoken unto you. Abide in me, and I 
in you." His influence and words had made their 
souls pure at that moment ; but they must abide in 
him in order to continue so. 

For many years I read a passage of the Sermon 
on the Mount thus : " Salt is good; but if the salt 
has lost its savor, wherewith shall it be salted?" 



52 E VERY-DAY RELIGION. 

I think most persons will agree with me that a bet- 
ter rendering is this : " Salt is good ; but if the salt 
has lost its savor, wherewith shall it be salted ? " 

I will give only one more example. In that 
noble passage of Paul, read so often in the burial- 
service, I think the force is frequently weakened by 
too much emphasis : " It is sown in corruption, it 
is raised in incorruption ; it is soiun in iveakness, 
it is raised in power ; it is sown a natural body, it 
is raised a spiritual body." A better way, more 
natural, more simple, more effective, I think, is 
this : " It is sown in corruption, it is raised in 
^corruption ; it is sown in weakness, it is raised 
in power ; it is sown a natural body, it is raised a 
spiritual body." 

But true and false emphasis apply not only to 
language, but also to thought, to action, to life. 

True emphasis in thought consists in seeing what 
is central, fundamental, vital, in any subject, and 
bringing that out distinctly. You listen to two 
lawyers arguing a case. One emphasizes the main 
point, the pivot on which all depends, and makes 
that so clear and so convincing that it is impossible 
to question or doubt it. The other may say many 
true and strong things ; but they are so mixed up 
with weaker reasons, so tangled with secondary 
considerations, that they lose half their weight. 
This power of intellectual emphasis was very 
marked in Daniel Webster, and was the secret of 
much of his force. It often makes a great difference 



EMPHASIS IN RELIGION AND LIFE. 53 

between preachers. I have listened to sermons 
which contained many excellent thoughts and im- 
portant truths, but none were made prominent 
enough to be remembered. The power of the late 
George Putnam consisted in his having one impor- 
tant thought in each sermon, which he illustrated 
and enforced by various arguments, and to which 
he held from beginning to end. Therefore you 
remembered each of his sermons, and its one moral 
remained with you. Intellectual power consists in 
a lame degree in being; able to see what truths are 
primary, fundamental, and essential, the master- 
lights of all our seeing. It is to hold these primary 
truths rooted in the mind as imchansrinar convic- 
tions, solid as the granite foundations of the earth. 
The mind which has no such settled convictions is 
like a wave of the sea, driven with the wind and 
tossed. Such a mind, unable to grasp any truth 
firmly, or to arrive at a definite conclusion on any 
subject, is necessarily a weak one. To hold our- 
selves in doubt while our opinions are not formed 
is right ; but to still doubt our conclusion after we 
have come to it and seen it clearly, shows a want 
of mental vigor. Mr. Emerson once said, "I am 
a perpetual seeker, with no past behind me." But 
he certainly did not mean by this that he was 
without fixed convictions, for no man has been 
more constant than he to certain primary truths ; 
no one has had more mental emphasis of thought 
and utterance than he. 



54 E VERY-DAY RELIGION. 

True emphasis in morals consists in laying stress 
where stress ought to be laid, and making that 
important which ought to be so. The lives of many 
good men want emphasis. They are negatively 
good. Their goodness is not pronounced. They 
seem to drift rather than steer. But goodness im- 
plies, first of all, having a good aim, a good intention, 
meaning -something, aiming steadily at something. 
Alas ! the lives of so many have no emphasis. They 
do things because others do them, because it is the 
custom to do them, not because it is right. But 
how invigorating it is to see those who are a law 
to themselves, who are ready to do what is right 
whether other men hear or forbear. These men 
are the salt of society. They may often seem 
harsh, severe, intolerant ; but their intolerance is 
better than the weak concession of so many. I 
would rather be criticised, though unjustly, by a 
righteous man, than have the commendation of a 
thoughtless multitude. 

In our complex society we need stress laid on 
right purpose to call our attention to what is good. 
Therefore Ave have societies for different good ob- 
jects, each laving emphasis on some one thing. 
The temperance societies emphasize temperance, 
and oppose the indulgence which does so much 
harm. They call attention to the misery which 
comes from drink ; the woe, the cruel sufferings of 
wives and children resulting from this awful social 
curse. The societies to prevent cruelty to animals 



EMPHASIS IN RELIGION AND LIFE. 55 

emphasize the right of our poor dumb brethren, 
whom God has given us to protect, and whom we 
so often ill treat and abuse. Such a society does 
what no individual can. It compels the inatten- 
tive public to see that animals have rights which 
we are all bound to respect. It was well when 
a man in Plymouth was sent to the State Prison 
for three years for cruelly maiming a horse ; for this 
punishment will make hundreds of others under- 
stand that horses also have the great arm of law 
stretched out for their protection. If the Aboli- 
tion Society had not so strenuously emphasized the 
great wrong of slavery, we might never have had 
emancipation. Other societies emphasize the rights 
of children, the rights of the poor, the rights of 
women to equality before the law. I think we 
need them all. We need to have our dull attention 
constantly recalled to these claims. We may think 
the advocates of some particular reforms extravagant, 
we may think that what they say is in bad taste, 
that they lay an undue emphasis on this or that 
method ; but the important thing is to have each and 
all of these reforms made distinct and clear, to keep 
men from fomettin£ them. We ouo-ht to be willing 
to tolerate a little intolerance in a good cause, for 
the essential thing is to have some one who shall 
cry aloud and spare not when the community sleeps 
over an evil. If there is too much steam, it may 
easily blow itself off; but at all events let us have 
enough to make the vessel move forward. 



56 E VERY-DAY RELIGION. 

A friend brought to me a day or two since a 
great curiosity, one of the most precious autographs 
I ever saw. It was the identical letter written in 
1775 by Benjamin Franklin to a member of Parlia- 
ment who had voted for the stamp act and other 
oppressive acts of the British Government toward 
the colonies. It ran thus : — 

Philadelphia, July 5, 1775. 

Mr. Steahan, — Sir: You are a member of Parlia- 
ment, and one of that Majority which has doomed my 
country to Destruction. Yon have begun to burn our 
Towns and murder our People. Look upon your Hands. 
They are stained with the Blood of your Relatives. 
You and I were long Friends. You are now my Enemy, 
and I am Yours, 

B. Franklin. 

There is emphasis in that letter. It gives no 
uncertain sound. 

Why do we keep the birthday of Washington ? 
We reverence Washington, not merely as the great 
commander, whose perfect judgment, patience, for- 
titude, carried the country through the Kevolution ; 
not only as the wise statesman on whom the nation 
leaned during its hours of uncertainty, but most of 
all as a man whose life was emphasized by con- 
science. As long as the memory of Washington 
lasts, we know that there is such a thing as un- 
bending principle, unconquerable patriotism. !No 
matter how many great men prove false or weak, 
we know that there is such a thing as justice and 



EMPHASIS IN RELIGION AND LIFE. 57 

honor. How wonderful is the power which goes 
forth from such a life ! After centuries have passed, 
it is still the strength of a people, — the inspiration 
of national character. If Washington's goodness 
had not possessed this emphasis, it could not have 
exercised such an influence. 

In religion also true emphasis consists in lay- 
ing enough stress, and in laying it on the right 
thing. If there is a God who protects and cares 
for us, in whom we live and move and breathe, to 
whom we are accountable, a Father and Friend 
and Helper, what is more essential in our life than 
this ? It is either nothing or all. Yet continually 
our religious life tends to be a mere habit, — our 
faith shrinks to an opinion ; inspiration ceases out 
of our days ; we have no open vision ; we live by 
the memory of a past experience. Therefore we 
need always to have men and women near us 
whose religion has emphasis, who do not think 
they believe, but speak that which they know and 
testify of what they have seen. This renews our 
own life. Blessed be God, who never leaves him- 
self without some such witness of his truth. These 
persons, in whom religious conviction is no vain 
repetition of past belief, but a fountain of new life, 
new love, free as air, fresh as the morning, cheer- 
ful as sunshine, solid as the primitive rock, — these 
are they who make God seem present and real 
to us also, and immortality close at hand. These 
are the men and women whom God sends as his 



58 E VERY-DAY RELIGION. 

prophets from age to age, — the Roman Catholic 
and Protestant saints, Saint Francis, Charles Borro- 
meo, Wesley, the Huguenots, Charming, — to rouse 
men from their dreary sleep in routine and sin. 

But there is always danger, not only of too little 
religious emphasis, but also of wrong emphasis. 
We may lay stress on unessential things till we 
fail to see what is essential. That was why Jesus 
blamed the Pharisees. They insisted on matters of 
secondary importance; they gave tithes of mint, 
anise, and cummin, and forgot the weightier matters 
of the law, —judgment, mercy, faith, love. They 
put the religious emphasis in the wrong place. 

So now the emphasis in religion is put in the 
wrong place when it is laid on profession, ritual, 
sacraments, creeds, instead of upon life and charac- 
ter. The prophets never committed this mistake. 
" To what purpose the multitude of your sacrifices 
unto me ? saith the Lord : I am weary to bear 
them. Cease to do evil ; learn to do well Seek 
justice, relieve the oppressed, judge the fatherless, 
plead for the widow," is the message of Isaiah. 
" Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter," 
says the Book of Ecclesiastes. " Fear God and 
keep his commandments ; for this is the whole duty 
of man." " What doth the Lord require of thee," 
said the prophet Micah, " but to do justly, and 
love mercy, and walk humbly with thy God ? " 
And Jesus summed up the whole law in love to 
God and man. 



EMPHASIS IN RELIGION AND LIFE. 59 

The perfect emphasis of the life of Christ has 
been one source of his authority over mankind. In 
him everything had its proper place, — nothing ex- 
cessive, nothing wanting. The great purpose of his 
being was to do the will of his Father, to be 
about his Father's business, to finish the work 
given him to do. But while the main current of 
his course ran steadily toward this end, he could 
also feel for human sorrows, help the sufferers, be 
glad with the happy, and weep with the sad. So 
his life was full, rounded, and harmonious. This is 
what Paul means by " the fulness of the stature of 
Christ." 

The other day I saw that a man had put on his 
wife's gravestone the words, " She was saved by the 
atonement of Christ." But the atonement, as usually 
understood, is a doctrine about Christ, and no one 
can be saved by such a dogma. The emphasis was 
wrong. How much better the inscriptions in the 
Catacombs : " She is safe in Christ," " She is at 
peace in God," " She rests in hope." 

We sometimes listen to speakers who, by empha- 
sizing every sentence and word, fail to make any- 
thing emphatic. A like harm is done by religious 
talk, which carries words about religion into every- 
thing, and so becomes cant. But when a man who 
is not in the habit of talking about his religion 
says a single word which shows his faith in God 
and eternity, it makes an impression on us. Abra- 
ham Lincoln did not generally pass for a religious 



60 E VERY-DAY RE LI Gl ON. 

man. His religion was too deep down, too far in, 
for many words. All the more we value the evi- 
dence we have of it, AYe learn from Mr. Chase that 
when Lincoln finally told his Cabinet that he was 
determined to sign the Emancipation Proclamation, 
he said : " I have waited till I am sure the time has 
come. The nation is ready for it. The best men 
demand it. Besides," he added, in a low tone, as 
if speaking to himself, " I promised my God, when 
Lee was driven out of Maryland, that I would do 
it." When an earnest man says a thing like that, 
we know that he has been walking with God. 

To put the right emphasis into our lives, we also 
must walk with God. Churches, Sundays, Bibles, 
are important as influences ; but the emphasis of 
life must go beyond them all, down to that re- 
gion of the soul where man is alone with his God. 
That alone gives us strength in our weakness, com- 
fort in our sorrow, and makes our life here lean 
the right way. We must have an inward personal 
conviction, a faith which goes below all language, 
which is like that of a child who simply holds his 
father's hand and so feels safe. God comes near 
to us when we might be afraid to come near him. 
So he fills our days with sweetness and strength, 
lifts us above forms, solemn words and looks, re- 
liance on ritual, worry about opinions and churches, 
and gives us a life hid with Christ in himself. 



V. 
SPEAKING THE TEUTH IN LOVE. 



SPEAKING THE TRUTH IN LOYE. 



' I ^0 speak the truth, or what seems to be truth to 
-*■ us, is not a very hard thing, provided we do 
not care what harm we do by it, or whom we hurt 
by it. This kind of "truth-telling " has been always 
common. Such truth-tellers call themselves plain, 
blunt men, who say what they think, and do not 
care who objects to it. A man who has a good deal 
of self-reliance and not much sympathy, can get 
a reputation for courage by this way of speak- 
ing the truth. But the difficulty about it is, that 
truth thus spoken does not convince or convert men ; 
it only offends them. It is apt to seem unjust; and 
injustice is not truth. 

Some persons think that unless truth is thus 
hard and disagreeable it cannot be pure. Civility 
toward error seems to them treason to the truth. 
Truth to their mind is a whip with which to 
lash men, a club with which to knock them down. 
They regard it as an irritant adapted to arouse 
sluggish consciences. 



64 E VERY-DAY RELIGION. 

I recollect once, at an Antislavery meeting in 
former days, one of the sterner sort of Abolitionists 
suddenly sprang to his feet, and said, "We are not 
doing our duty. See how quietly and peacefully the 
audience are listening to us. If we were doing our 
duty, they would be throwing brickbats at us ! " 

In the same way it has been a common theory in 
the religious world that the natural human heart is 
so opposed to truth that any doctrine which does not 
offend men must be false. They forget that the com- 
mon people heard Jesus gladly, and that when the 
apostles first preached the gospel, three thousand per- 
sons gladly received the word, and were baptized. 

To speak the truth is very necessary. More of 
plain, honest, kindly, affectionate truth-telling is 
much wanted in the world. Very few people get 
the truth told them which they need to hear and 
ought to hear. People say behind their backs what 
is never said to their face. A fault which they 
might easily correct, if they knew of it, they con- 
tinue to commit all their lives, because they have 
no friend manly enough or kind enough to tell them 
of it. Therefore if you can find a truth-teller honest, 
direct, straightforward, and at the same time kind, 
sympathizing, and loving, you have found a friend 
worth more than diamonds. And if I had to choose 
between those who never tell me my faults and 
those who tell them too rudely, I ought infinitely 
rather to prefer the harsh and rough truth to the 
mild and civil falsehood. 



SPEAKING THE TRUTH IN LOVE. 65 

Saadi, the Persian poet, tells this story : " A 
preacher of a harsh tone of voice fancied himself 
a fine-spoken man ; but the croaking of a raven 
seemed the burden of his chant, and his voice was 
like the braying of an ass. In reverence for his 
rank, his townsmen indulged the defect, and would 
not distress him by remarking on it, till another 
preacher, who disliked him, came and said, ' I have 
seen you in a dream ; may it prove fortunate.' He 
replied, ' What have you seen ? ' He answered, ' It 
seemed in my vision that your croaking voice had 
become harmonious.' Tor a while the preacher 
bowed his head in thought, then raised it, and said : 
* What a fortunate vision, which has made me sensi- 
ble of my weakness ! I am now aware that I have 
an unpleasant voice, and that the people are dis- 
tressed at my delivery. I will try, henceforth, to 
speak more softly. My friends distress me who ex- 
tol my vices as though they were virtues, and regard 
my thorns as roses. Where is that rude enemy who 
will tell me all my deformities ? ' " 

Schiller, the German poet, tells us, in one of his 
couplets, much the same thing ; — 

" My friend helps me ; my foe is also useful to me. 
The one shows me what I am able to be ; the other, what 
I ought to be." 

And Confucius, the wise man of China, says in 
his " Table Talk " : " I am a fortunate man ; if I do 
anything wrong, I am sure to be told of it." . 

5 



66 E VERY-DAY RELIGION. 

But we are not all as noble as Schiller and Con- 
fucius, and therefore we are apt to resent being 
charged with faults and follies of which we are 
not aware. Hence it is important that, while we 
are told the truth, we should be told it in such a 
way as to make us feel that it is spoken, not as cold 
criticism, not in a tone of superiority, not as if the 
speaker took pleasure in fault-finding ; but as the 
faithful wound of a friend, the truth which is mar- 
ried to love, the higher generosity which is willing 
to encounter our resentment in order to do good to 
our soul. 

To tell truth in this way is a high art, and comes 
from a noble temper. Happy is he who has such 
a friend, — a friend able to see the good and the 
evil in his heart, whose love is full of insight, 
recognizing every good purpose, every longing after 
right, every conflict with wrong, and who yet can 
see and say what more is needed, what better things 
may be done. What higher compliment can be paid 
us than faith that we are strong enough to be told 
of our faults, that we are magnanimous enough to 
wish to know them ? The world is sick because of 
shams, pretences, empty shows, forms which have 
nothing left in them but dead habit. Every age 
needs its prophets to rouse it from its deadly sleep 
in some dear, delightful falsehood. These prophets 
have a hard time of it ; they are usually stoned, 
beaten, killed ; they have to make their faces hard 
as a flint, and to speak their word whether men 



SPEAKING THE TRUTH IN LOVE. 67 

will hear or forbear. They have a prophet's reward, 
— hard work, plenty of opposition ; but an inward 
conviction that they are right, and must triumph at 
last. 

Truth is the salt of the earth. What is life good 
for without it ? What is any man good for who 
does not care for truth ? If you ask yourself 
why you respect any one, you will find it to be be- 
cause there is in him an element of truth. He has 
real convictions. He believes something. He cares 
for matters outside his own selfish interests ; he 
is moved to joy by the sight of what is just and 
generous ; he is thrilled with indignation by the 
knowledge of what is wicked. He believes in the 
things unseen ; he believes in God ; he believes in 
some great divine power above all, through all, in 
all. He may be a Pagan, and call God Jupiter ; he 
may be a Hindoo, and call him Brahm ; he may be 
a Calvinist, and believe God an arbitrary being who 
makes some of his children for heaven and some for 
hell, — but, at all events, he believes something, and 
that is better than not believing. Without belief 
there is no earnestness, and without earnestness life 
is intolerable. Unless we are in earnest about some- 
thing, what is the use of living ? 

To believe something;-, even if it be mixed with 
error, is better than to believe nothing ; for belief 
implies the love of truth, and this is the first step 
toward truth itself. There are two kinds of truth : 
inward truth, truth to one's self, or truthfulness; 



68 E VERY-DAY RELIGION. 

and secondly, knowledge of reality, or outward 
truth. Both kinds of truth are essential to good- 
ness and happiness. They make the difference be- 
tween right and wrong, good and evil, going forward 
and going backward. 

But, beside truth, there is another and an op- 
posite virtue, which is love. These two make up 
the whole of goodness. Truth is one element, and 
love the other. They are different and opposite 
qualities, but necessary to each other. Neither will 
suffice alone. 

Some men have truth but have not love. Their 
truth is hard, cold, overbearing, dogmatical. They 
do not speak it in love. They drive men, they do 
not lead them. There is nothing attractive, mag- 
netic, about them. They scold and rail at those 
who differ from them. We cannot but feel a certain 
respect for them, but we do not like them. What 
they say may be the truth, but we are not attracted 
by it. Truth without love does not seem beautiful. 

So there are other men who have love but not 
truth. They are full of good-will, overflowing with 
sympathy, but do not help us, because they have 
no stamina, no strength of their own. They are dis- 
posed to give to others, but they have nothing to 
give. They sympathize with us whether we are 
right or wrong, good or bad. They are a " mush of 
concession." Their love, being without truth, does 
not do us good. 

If you try to carry out truth or love to its 



SPEAKING THE TRUTH IN LOVE. 69 

ultimate separately, you spoil both. Take for ex- 
ample the case of a man who is in love with truth. 
" I will tell the truth always," he says, " regardless 
of consequences." What, will you tell a madman 
the truth ? Will you tell a child the whole truth ? 
Will you always tell all the truth to every one ? 
Will you have no reserve ? By such a course 
society would be dissolved. The early Quakers 
tried this plan. They tried to be perfectly truthful ; 
to have their yea, yea, and their nay, nay. They 
said thee instead of you, because to use the plural 
number when speaking to one man seemed to them 
false. One Quaker refused to wear clothes which 
had been dyed, because it involved deception. But 
what was the result ? Avoiding forms and wishing 
to follow the immediate impulse of the Spirit, they 
present the curious anomaly of an outcome of the 
most rigid formalism. Truth in the letter at last 
seemed to harden and freeze, and to destroy truth 
in the spirit. This is the inevitable result of a 
one-sided development. 

Every good character is composed, of truth and 
love. Think of the person you have loved best in 
the world. It was some one who had a character 
of his own, rooted in the love of truth and right, 
who would not give way, but stood firm according 
to his conscience ; but who, while thus strong in 
himself, was tender and generous toward others. He 
could forgive others, and be more tolerant toward 
them than toward himself. 



70 E VERY-DAY RELIGION. 

It is this union of sincerity and good-will which 
constitutes the nobleness of man. The man who 
is strong in some rooted convictions, who stands 
firm on his sense of right, and yet whose generosity 
flows steadily in a current of helpfulness to those 
around him, is the pillar of society. Such men are 
the pivots around which progress and improvement 
turn. They give beauty and dignity to a com- 
munity. 

This twofold element of truth and love must go 
into every action to make it good. Every good 
deed must partake of both qualities. If I do a 
kind act simply from good nature ; if I give money 
merely because I am asked to give it, without stop- 
ping to think whether it is right to do it and if 
it will do real good, then my good nature is the 
merest weakness ; it has no substance in it. It is 
only the selfish desire to escape trouble. On the 
other hand, if I am honest, just, and truthful in 
anything merely for my own sake, and do not care 
how my honesty or truth helps or hurts others; 
if I blurt out unnecessarily and harshly whatever 
I think to be truth, then my truth ceases to be 
truth, and becomes only self-will and obstinacy. 
You cannot find a single good action which has not 
involved in it this twofold element, and in propor- 
tion as they are well balanced, goodness grows into 
beauty, and conduct is not only right, but also 
lovely. 

One of the peculiarities of Jesus was that in him 



SPEAKING THE TRUTH IN LOVE. 71 

the love of truth and the love of man were in com- 
plete harmony. His truth was never hard, his kind- 
ness never weak. His justice was not cold law ; 
his tenderness no effeminate good nature. His 
love had an edge to it ; it was no rose-water 
philanthropy. He was the most earnest reformer 
who ever appeared in the world; and yet we do 
not think of him as such, because his severity was 
so filled with warmth, and with that actinic ray 
which makes all seeds swell, all buds open into blos- 
som. Yet look at it. He came to take up many 
tilings by the roots, this most uncompromising of 
radicals. He seemed to the Jews to overthrow all 
that was most venerable in their religion. Jerusa- 
lem was no sacred city to him. Man may worship 
God everywhere. The Sabbath is no holy day 
in itself, but only good as it serves man ; the Tem- 
ple must pass away, with its awful and holy cere- 
monies. He instituted a religion without priest, 
temple, altar, book, or day. In the destructive 
analysis of his criticism all forms and creeds were 
dissolved, and nothing remained but love to God 
and man. And yet all this destruction was so con- 
stantly for the sake of something positive, that he 
could say truly, " I came not to destroy, but to ful- 
fil." The Jewish Sabbath went, but it was fulfilled 
in the profound peace of hearts resting from all 
anxiety in the grace of God. The Temple passed, 
but worship remained, the worship of a little child 
clinging to his father's hand. The law of Moses 



72 E VERY-DAY RELIGION. 

came to an end, but that also was fulfilled in a 
joy which was its own security, in love which was 
an unerring light. Jesus in his word and in his 
life was truth spoken in love. His love went out 
further than human love had ever gone, so that it 
reached those furthest out and furthest away. His 
perfect holiness and purity led him to condemn all 
sin, but his perfect humanity led him to save every 
sinner. Thus in him mercy and truth met together, 
righteousness and peace kissed each other. Since 
he, so pure and holy, could yet love the sinner and 
give his life for him, we see how God can love us, 
even when we are most sinful and evil. 

All conflicts of duty resolve themselves at last 
into this antagonism of truth and love. If you 
ever feel a real difficulty as to what your duty is, 
you will find, on looking into it, that truth seems to 
be pulling you one way and love the other. A man 
comes to you with a tale of woe. Love says, " Help 
him." Truth says, " No. Perhaps he is an impos- 
tor. In that case, your helping him will do harm, 
not good." You hear things said and done in soci- 
ety which seem to you false and evil. Truth says, 
" Protest against them. Denounce them. Expose 
them." Love replies, "No. What right have you 
to stab, cut, wound people who may be right after 
all ? And what good will it do ? It will only dis- 
please and offend them." You see many customs 
and habits which appear false and evil. Truth 
says, " Come out and be separate from them. Do 



SPEAKING THE TRUTH IN LOVE. 73 

not conform. Go your own way. Do what seems 
to you to be right, no matter what others may think 
or say." Love says, " No ! That will do no good. 
They will not understand you, and you will lose all 
your influence by such eccentricity." We are con- 
stantly tormented by these difficulties ; these cases 
of conscience come every day to every conscientious 
person, and most of them at last will be found to 
resolve themselves into this eternal antagonism of 
truth on the one side and love on the other. 

And the solution of such difficulties is to be 
sought, not in thought, but in life. Intellectually, 
many of these difficulties are insoluble. The old 
Catholic writers wrote volumes of casuistry, or works 
on cases of conscience, in which they tried to find 
an intellectual solution for these moral difficulties. 
That literature is forgotten, for it was ineffectual 
and useless. But if a man is living in the spirit of 
Christ, if he is full of the love of truth, the sense of 
justice, honor, purity, virtue, and at the same time 
full of humanity, good-will, charity; then, when a 
difficulty comes, he will discover some practical 
solution. In proportion to the fulness of his re- 
ligious life the solution will be the most profitable 
and satisfactory. 

Truth without love, in religion, is dogmatism. 
It is overbearing, cold, bitter. It hunts for heresies, 
and persecutes the heretic. Truth without love 
founded the Inquisition, tortured and burned un- 
believing Jews and Protestants. Its zeal is cruel. 



74 E VERY-DAY RELIGION. 

In modern times, truth without love does not per- 
secute, but it slanders — it is unrelenting, unsym- 
pathizing. It is a curious fact that a religious 
newspaper, carried on in the interest of a sect, is 
often just as one-sided and partisan as a political 
newspaper, and has as little Christianity in it. 

Truth without love, in education, created that 
harsh system in which knowledge was driven into 
the minds of children by blows, and the beauties 
of science, literature, art, were made odious to the 
child's mind by associations with scolding and pun- 
ishment. Fortunately for the coming generation 
that brutal system is passing away, and little chil- 
dren can hereafter take their fill of knowledge with 
gladness of heart. 

Truth without love, in the home, makes it cold 
and cheerless. The inmates may do their duty 
to each other, but without any genial sympathy. 
Thus home becomes prosaic and uninteresting, and 
life grows gray and the vital spring is gone. 

The cure for these evils is more faith in God 
and a better religion. We can unite truth with 
love, love with truth, only as we are in communion 
with Him, the fountain of spiritual life. That union 
makes the soul at once tender and strong, pure and 
generous, just and merciful. We can pardon weak- 
ness in others, because we know we so much need 
pardon ourselves. When we see in God the infi- 
nite, all-embracing tenderness, the power which is 
also goodness, the Father who cares for every child, 



SPEAKING THE TRUTH IN LOVE. 75 

who seeks and saves the lost, and rejoices over the 
repentance of every sinner, we also can care for the 
souls of others and take a real interest in them. 

The true atonement of Christ was not that he 
made it possible for God to forgive his penitent 
children, for God always could and did forgive the 
penitent. But it was showing, in his own person 
and character, how truth and love are one, how 
righteousness and peace kiss each other, and that 
there is no contradiction between justice and mercy. 
By thus uniting them in himself, he showed that 
they are one in God ; that God can be just and 
yet forgive his penitent child ; that as Jesus was 
holy and yet loving, God, the all-holy, can be all- 
loving too. Thus he enables us to trust in God, 
notwithstanding our faults, and come confidently 
to the throne of omnipotence to find grace to help 
in time of need. 

And as Jesus has manifested this in his life, and 
revealed God's holiness and love as one, so every 
good man and woman can be a revelation of God in 
the same way. Every one whom we have known in 
whom justice and mercy were united, has helped us 
to see the same union in God, and so has brought 
us near to him. 

Let us, therefore, aim high ; let us not be satis- 
fied with a one-sided virtue. If we are naturally 
sympathetic, let us add to this, strength of prin- 
ciple and the love of truth. If we are by nature 
conscientious and truthful, let us also be tender, 



76 E VERY-DAY RELIGION. 

kind, merciful and generous ; and so become the 
true children of our Father in heaven, who lets his 
sun shine on the evil and the good, and sends his 
rain on the just and the unjust. 

In order that the love of truth may not pass into 
empty debate and verbal controversy, it must be 
joined with the spirit of love which comes from 
Christianity. The man who leads a religious life, 
who is sensible of God's presence and his own 
accountability, who breathes every day a prayer to 
Heaven that he may be saved from evil and helped 
into good, who looks up every day for pardon, 
comfort, and strength, and looks abroad every day 
to find how to serve his Master and Saviour, — he 
will speak the truth, but speak it in love. He will 
avoid both extremes. The spirit within him will 
guide him aright. That which no study of the 
casuists could teach him will be done for him by 
the spirit of Christ in his heart. That will lead 
him along the narrow path of duty, will make him 
faithful, yet gentle ; true, yet kind ; firm in his pur- 
pose, mild in his method ; inflexible in his principles, 
liberal in his judgments. When such a one speaks 
or acts we feel in him this completeness or fulness 
of the moral nature ; he is not one-sided, not ex- 
treme ; he walks at liberty and he walks securely ; 
being led by the spirit of God, he becomes a son 
of God. 



VI. 
UNTRANSLATABLE WORDS. 



VI. 

UNTRANSLATABLE WORDS. 



EVERY one knows that, strictly speaking, most 
words are almost untranslatable. It is always 
hard to find an exact equivalent for any word which 
has much meaning. There are no exact synonymes 
for such words in their own language, and nothing 
precisely corresponding to them in another. But 
this difficulty is immensely increased when these 
words have any subtle aroma, any particular charm, 
any delicate sentiment attached to them. Then they 
become absolutely untranslatable. The very qual- 
ity which distinguishes them disappears when they 
are transferred into a different phrase. This makes 
the desperate nature of the attempt to translate 
poetry from one language into another, for a large 
part of the charm of poetic language lies in the 
subtle associations connected with each word. We 
read Virgil or Horace in the best English trans- 
lations, and wonder how they can ever have been 
considered such great writers. Their peculiar aroma 
has evaporated while they were being poured from 
one receptacle into another. The reverse takes 



80 EVERY-DAY RELIGION. 

place which was suggested in the parable, for the 
old wine has burst the new bottles, and the wine 
has been spilled. 

Hence it happens that foreign words are so often 
transported bodily from one language into another, 
or left untranslated when quoted for any purpose. 
Words which cannot be translated from the Latin, 
Greek, French, German, are adopted into English, 
and naturalized. Thus every language is enriched 
by the best phrases of every other. This, no doubt, 
often leads to pedantry, conscious or unconscious. 
Foreign words are used when English ones would do 
as well, or better. So we have introduced the Ger- 
man word "hand-book," when we already had a word 
with precisely the same meaning, "manual," and 
with a better sound. But generally these immigra- 
tions from foreign parts enrich our own literature. 

Sometimes words are left untranslated because 
they seem untranslatable. Shakspeare has done this, 
as when the dying Caesar reproaches Brutus with 
the words, "And thou, too, Brutus!" Shakspeare 
has left it in the Latin, " Et tu, Brute ! Then die, 
Caesar." There seems something incongruous in 
putting a Latin and an English clause together in 
the same line. But Shakspeare, no doubt, found 
something in the Latin to which no English 
words — not even his own — could do justice. . 

The English and German Bibles, as translations, 
are as nearly perfect as anything can be, — I mean 
as a whole, and in their impression on the mind. 



UNTRANSLATABLE WORDS. 81 

There are errors, no doubt, which ought to be cor- 
rected ; but the simplicity, pathos, sublimity of the 
language cannot be surpassed. In these great Teu- 
tonic tongues strength and tenderness blend, as in 
the original writings. Unfortunately, the language 
which was spoken by Jesus and his disciples in 
Galilee has disappeared. There is no gospel extant 
in the words which were uttered on the lake shore 
or in Capernaum. A few fragments, however, of 
that old speech remain in the New Testament, — 
certain words so full of tender and heavenly asso- 
ciations that they were left untranslated in the 
Greek gospels, and still remain untranslated in our 
English Testament. 

Of these I will mention five, — four of them 
uttered by Jesus, and one by Mary Magdalene. 
Two of these were expressions of power ; one was 
a cry of anguish ; another was an utterance of un- 
unspeakable tenderness; the last, of the most ardent 
faith. 

We read that Jairus, the ruler of the synagogue, 
came to Jesus, earnestly praying him to come and 
heal his little daughter, who was at the point of 
death. Jesus comes to the house, goes into the 
room with only three of his disciples — Peter, 
James, and John — and the father and mother of 
the little girl, who was twelve years old. Having 
put out those whom he found in the room, he 
called, saying, " Maid, arise ! " This is what Luke 
says, who, of course, was not present. Matthew, 

6 



82 E VERY-DAY RELIGION. 

he who was not in the room, says no more. But 
Mark, who reports the traditions which came from 
Peter, who was present, gives the very words uttered 
by Christ in the language of the people, " Talitha 
cumi ! " These literally mean, " My lamb, arise ! " 
Peter heard those words ; he heard the divine 
tones of the voice, the spirit of Jesus going from 
him at that moment with power which penetrated 
the dull ear of death, and poured a mighty vital 
influence into the brain and nervous centres. 
There was a quality in those two words which 
could not be translated. If there is such a thing 
as verbal inspiration, it is found here in words 
instinct with some divine influence. 

In the same Gospel of Mark a similar quotation 
of the original occurs — where Jesus cares the 
deaf man. The very Aramaic term which he ut- 
tered is given, " Uph-phatha ! " — " be opened ! " 
There was something also in that phrase which 
could not be translated, some thrilling tone from 
the depths of the soul, full of power to reach the 
seat of life in the soul of the sufferer. 

Have we not all heard some such tone of com- 
mand, of authority, w T hen the whole force of human 
will seems to rush into the voice, and give it such 
power that all who hear are swept away by the 
irresistible current ? Such was the authority of 
the great Lord Chatham, who carried in his very 
tones a weight of command which no man on the 
floor of the House of Commons could resist. 



UNTRANSLATABLE WORDS. 83 

Many qualities of the soul go to make this elo- 
quence. Sincerity, conviction, determination, cour- 
age, intense purpose. But in the voice of Jesus how- 
much more ! There was in it something not human 
merely, but divine ; a heavenly influence, an angelic 
force coming from on high. No wonder that Peter 
could never forget those syllables, which went into 
his heart and engraved themselves there forever. 

Another of those untranslatable sentences was 
that uttered on the cross, "Eli, Eli, lama sabach- 
tkanil" It was spoken from the depths of a 
"divine despair." What profound pathos in that 
terrible cry, the most dreadful, perhaps, ever uttered 
on the earth ! Oh, children of sorrow, who count up 
your miseries and complain of Providence, listen to 
that wail which comes down through the centuries 
in the very w T ords in which it w r as spoken ! What 
are our w T oes and sorrows, our selfish and momentary 
losses ? Has not that mighty heart throbbed with a 
deeper anguish than all of ours ? He has explored 
that mystery of evil far below the depths our plum- 
met can sound ; for it takes a mighty soul to bear a 
mighty sorrow. Our agonies are for a day, and for 
ourselves alone. He saw and felt for the miseries 
of mankind. For a moment the world seemed to 
him forsaken of God, left to go its own way into 
ruin. That was the blackest hour ever seen on 
earth, when even the hope of Jesus was darkened, 
though but for a moment. I know that he quoted 
the language of the Psalm of David, but surely 



84 E VERY-DAY RELIGION. 

took that language because it best expressed his 
own sense of being forsaken of his Father, of being 
for that one short instant without God in the world. 
And thus we have him for our companion in the 
deepest of all woes. When to us all things seem to 
go wrong, and there is no sun in the skies, no hope, 
no courage, no sense of human or divine love ; even 
then there is one stay left, that Jesus has been down 
even as low as that into despair, and has returned to 
the bosom of the Father's love. This is the anchor 
which holds still. There needs no scholastic dogma 
of God's wrath having been laid on him, no theo- 
logical figment of his being punished in our place. 
He bore our sins and carried our sorrows in a more 
human sense, by being tried in all points as we are, 
and yet remaining sinless. Having suffered such 
trials, he is able to help us, tried in the same way. 
If there is any one to whom life seems very dark, 
and God far away, remember that Jesus, God's 
blessed son, has also felt this weight of woe, and 
yet risen above it all. 

The next untranslated word I will mention is 
that uttered, not by Jesus himself, but to him, by 
Mary Magdalene, when she first recognized him on 
the morning of the resurrection. It was the echo 
returned by her voice to the depths of love in his 
own. " Jesus said to her, Mary ! She answered, 
Babboni ! that is, Master ! " Why was that foreign 
word left in the record ? Because there was a sound 
in it which no other could convey. When Mary 



UNTRANSLATABLE WORDS. 85 

came back and told her story, and they asked her, 
" What did you say ? " she answered, I suppose, " I 
could say nothing. I could only burst forth in one 
wild cry of wonder, joy, love, — Rabboni /" And 
when she repeated it to them there still lingered in 
the words the same tones. 

Oh, marvellous history ! instinct throughout with 
all the experiences of the human heart; how we 
find continually as we study it fresh proofs of its 
reality ! How dull our eyes if they do not see in 
it the very inspiration of truth ! How human 
nature shows itself in every line of this divine 
narrative ! 

Have we not felt hours of similar joy, when, 
after years of routine and sin, of discouragement 
and doubt, w T e also seem again to meet the full 
smile of God ? Are there not moments when this 
tide of heavenly love comes to us, and when Jesus 
our Master seems a real living person by our side ? 
He has been nailed to the cross by our sin, he has 
been buried in the tomb of our black despair, he 
has been swathed in the winding-sheet of some 
hard theology, or our Lord has been taken away 
from us by the bigot or the sceptic. We know not 
where they have laid him. The dear human friend 
of our childhood and youth has gone, and in his 
place we have critical doubts or theological discus- 
sions. One man, with vast labor and ingenuity, 
resolves that dear life into legends and myths. 
Another makes of it a supernatural mystery. But at 



86 E VERY-DAY RELIGION. 

last, as we read the Gospels, the whole humanity of 
Jesus reappears to us. We see hirn there again as we 
saw him in our childhood, our dear human brother. 
He "walks by our side once more, and our heart 
burns within us by the way. We forget all these 
doubts and questions ; we leave them behind ; we 
care not concerning questions of natural and super- 
natural; the mists of controversy are dissipated, 
and the face of our best friend appears to us again 
to forgive, to comfort, to give us rest, and with 
Mary we can only say, " Babboni ! — Master ! " 

These little incidental proofs of the truth of the 
Gospel story are the most valuable of all. These 
cannot be counterfeited. They are hidden deep in 
the texture of the story, and only appear when we 
look very closely at the narrative. But they are 
like the circumstantial evidence, which, when 
woven into a complete chain, becomes irresistible. 
A thousand little traits, each in itself insignificant, 
combine to produce an overwhelming sense of 
reality. 

I will speak of only one other specimen of the 
remains of an ancient language which thus con- 
tinues imbedded in the strata of successive trans- 
lations. It is that in which Jesus cries in his 
prayer in the garden, "Abba! Father!" That 
word abba was the Aramaic-Syrian form of the in- 
fant's first uttered word, and equivalent to " papa " 
in our speech. Paul refers to it afterwards when he 
says, " Because we are sons, God has put his spirit 



UNTRANSLATABLE WORDS. 87 

in our hearts, by which we cry, Abba! Father!" 
The disciples did not often hear their Master use 
this word. It was not worn hard by familiarity. 
It had not become a mere phrase, as it too often is 
to us. It kept all the freshness of its first impres- 
sion. Jesus did not pray much in public. He 
went alone into the mountain to pray. He told 
his disciples to go into their closets to pray, and to 
shut the door. He did not approve praying at the 
corners of the streets to be seen of men. Therefore 
I suppose even the disciples did not hear him pray 
very often. But sometimes he wished them to be 
with him; he longed to have them by his side 
while he prayed. And then they heard this won- 
derful word, " Abba" from his lips, and they never 
forgot the tone in which it was said : " Abba ! 
Father ! if it be possible let this cup pass away • 
nevertheless, not as I will, but as thou wilt." Such 
words brought heaven near to them and made God 
real. I think that they had never before dreamed 
of the possibility of such intimacy between man 
and God. 

To us, too often, in our prayers, God seems far 
away, — some vast power in the distant depths of 
the universe. Our prayers are mere forms, empty 
repetitions, words, and nothing more. But some- 
times God himself puts his spirit into our hearts, 
and enables us to cry " Abba ! Father ! " At once 
he seems very near and very real. His divine 
arms are beneath us, and we rest safe and sure. 



88 E VERY-DAY RELIGION. 

Though all else may forget us and forsake us, he 
will never do so. ISTo matter how weak we are, 
how sinful we are, he can forgive, not seventy times 
seven, as he tells us to do, but innumerable sevens, 
and myriads of seventies. This is the one love 
which no sin can weary, and of which Jesus is the 
blessed image to us evermore. Deep-rooted in the 
heart, this faith in God's fatherly tenderness grows 
ever more certain and more strong, and this is 
the Gospel against which the gates of hell shall not 
prevail. The Father is greater than all, and no 
one shall pluck his children out of their Father's 
hand. 

When we can thus see God as our Father, we 
may be sure that he has put the spirit into our 
heart by which we see it. To be able really to 
believe in the fatherly love of the infinite Euler of 
all worlds is itself so marvellous an act that it can 
hardly proceed from human will or power. 

Yet how simple, childlike, natural, is this ex- 
perience ! This is one of the great facts of the 
universe, which is hidden from the wise and the 
prudent and revealed unto babes. 

I see a wise and good man sitting in his study. 
He is a conscientious seeker after truth, but he 
thinks he must seek it by the pure light of the 
intellect alone. He has adopted the maxim that 
"dry light is the best." He wishes to prove every 
opinion he holds. He wishes to demonstrate the 
reality of God, of the soul, of immortality. But he 



UNTRANSLATABLE WORDS. 89 

finds that, one by one, his old arguments give way. 
He loses, gradually, the beliefs of his childhood. 
Not distinguishing between belief and faith, theology 
and religion, he supposes that he must give up all 
the faith that he cannot rigidly authenticate by the 
methods of science. So the universe by degrees be- 
comes empty of all divine light and love. Instead 
of a God, above all, through all, and in all, he sees 
only blind forces, dead mechanism. Instead of 
Jesus as Brother, Master, Saviour, he finds in the 
Gospels only a few cinders which the fires of criti- 
cism have left behind. Instead of an immortal 
soul, he discovers only combinations of carbon and 
hydrogen. How lonely he is ! How weak he is ! 
What energy has man wherewith to do any great 
work when his faith is gone ? Nothing then seems 
of any use. It is better to die than to live ; better 
than both never to have been born. To this sad 
state many of the finest intellects of our time 
have come, by an honest effort to infer spirit from 
matter, and to evolve Deity out of the phenomena 
of the universe, instead of finding Him in their 
own soul. 

Meantime I see others who are "followers of 
God as dear children." They trust the deep and 
permanent voice in their own soul, which speaks of 
the infinite and eternal, of the cause above all other 
causes, the substance below all being. They do not 
seek to prove God, for they know him. They trust 
their own healthy instincts ; they do not kill their 



90 E VERY-DAY RELIGION. 

convictions in order to dissect them. They know 
there is a difference between right and wrong, be- 
cause they have not confused themselves by any 
subtle system of ethics. They believe in Christ, not 
because of learned books of evidences, but because 
he appears to them more heavenly than other human 
beings. He is their teacher, because he has taught 
them. To those who discuss the speculative ques- 
tions about his deity, they say, " Whether it is proper 
to call him God, we do not know; but one thing we 
know, that whereas we were blind, now we see." 
He is a good shepherd, and they follow him, and 
find themselves fed and strengthened and helped 
by his guidance. That is enough. 

We often overrate the power of intellect and un- 
derrate the power of character. When men speak, 
their character goes into their voice, and influences 
us inevitably and unconsciously. The voice carries 
the man in its tones ; his courage or his doubt, his 
faith or unbelief, his earnestness or his wilfulness, 
his meanness or his generosity. To influence men 
for good, we must be good ourselves. Though we 
speak with the tongue of men and angels, if we 
have a hard heart within, we are nothing. This is 
the lesson of these " untranslatable words." When 
uttered, the whole soul of Christ went into them, 
and so they could not be translated; but neither 
could they be forgotten or lost. They went out in 
waves of influence, moving through all the centuries 
with their penetrating power. They wrote them- 



UNTRANSLATABLE WORDS. 91 

selves, not on papyri, nor on the stone tablets of 
Egypt, but on the tables of the human heart. Of 
such influences God takes care, nor does the world 
willingly let them die. One age may neglect them, 
but in the next they renew their life. They need 
no mighty ark in which to float above the deluge 
of a sinking world ; immortal as man's nature, they 
renew their perennial youth, and forever repeat to a 
weary world and broken-hearted sorrowers, "Come 
to me, all ye who labor and are heavy-laden, and I 
will give you rest." 



VII. 

THE DUTY OF BEING UNFASHIONABLE. 



VII. 

THE DUTY OF BEING UNFASHIONABLE. 



ET us consider the duty of being unfashionable. 
~*-^ I do not believe that it is always a duty to 
be unfashionable. Fashions may be right, as well 
as wrong ; good, as well as bad ; and when they are 
right and good it is a duty to be fashionable. Or a 
fashion may be neither good nor bad, and then it is 
neither a duty to be fashionable nor to be unfash- 
ionable. The early Friends, and other religious 
sects, opposed fashion as such ; they protested 
against all fashion, in dress and address, — ■ fashions 
of speech, fashions of 'costume, fashions of conduct ; 
the fashion of taking off your hat, of using the plural 
pronoun, of having a coat made to fit the body. But 
I see nothing objectionable in wearing a fashionable 
dress rather than an unfashionable one, if you wish 
to do so, and can afford it. As a general thing it is 
best to conform to the customs of society when they 
are innocent. It is not worth while to make one's 
self a martyr for trifles ; and it sometimes requires 
more courage and involves more suffering to wear 
an odd-looking dress than to confess the greatest 



96 EVERY-DAY RELIGION. 

heresy in religion or politics. There is nothing 
which excites the public indignation more than a 
peculiar costume. When I first went to Europe, on 
arriving in England I found it quite common for 
men to wear shawls ; so I bought a shawl, and wore 
it. But when I reached Switzerland it appeared to 
be a thing unknown, and as I walked through the 
streets of a Swiss village all the boys would run 
after me and all the girls laugh at me ; so I had to 
lay aside my shawl. If a man in Boston should 
wear a turban, it would almost create a riot ; but if 
he should wear a hat in some places in the East, he 
might be stoned by the rabble, for the common peo- 
ple are always intolerant of any singularity in dress. 
Therefore I think it wrong in parents to compel 
young people to wear dresses made in an unusual 
way, for they thus expose their children to needless 
and useless suffering. The poor little boys or girls 
are made objects of ridicule to their companions, 
and perhaps no pain experienced in after life is 
sharper than what children sometimes endure in 
this way. What a dreadful time the poor little 
Quaker children must have had when their fathers 
and mothers first sent them out into the street in 
their strange costume ! Even now they suffer not 
a little. I recollect hearing of a young Quaker girl, 
who had it borne in upon her mind that she ought 
to be married in a strict Quaker dress, though her 
friends generally had dropped that ancient costume. 
She had a struggle to tell her lover of her wishes, 



THE DUTY OF BEING UNFASHIONABLE. 97 

but was, I am glad to say, relieved by finding that 
he was well satisfied to have her do just as she 
thought right on that occasion. 

But there are fashions in other things than dress, 
— fashions in literature, in philosophy, in art, in 
manners, in morals, in politics, in religion. And it 
may often be our duty to swim against the stream, 
to resist the current ; in short, it may often be our 
duty to become unfashionable. 

There are fashions in literature. In the days of 
Locke and Pope the fashion was plain good sense. 
The main thing was to be intelligible to the mean- 
est understanding. Those two great writers were 
not only clear, but also strong, full, and rich in 
thoughts ; but those who imitated them were as 
shallow as they were pellucid. Afterward there 
was a time when Thomson's Seasons and Shen- 
stone were in fashion, and everything was pastoral 
and sentimental. Then came the days of Byron, 
and the fashion was to be melancholy and misera- 
ble ; to be tired of life, and prematurely old. And 
if you open a magazine to-day, you will find other 
fashions. One man writes in the fashion of Carlyle; 
another in that of Emerson; one imitates Tennyson, 
and another Browning. But every original writer 
is unfashionable; he follows no fashion. He writes 
in his own way, not in that of any one else. In this 
sense, therefore, it is a duty to be unfashionable 
in literature. The good writer has a style of his 
own ; he does not flow with the stream ; he always 

7 



98 E VERY-DAY RELIGION. 

seems to be swimming against the current of com- 
monplace ; lie is original in thought and expression. 
He is so because he is true. As men are made 
differently from each other, every man who really 
thinks, must think in his own way; and if he is true 
to himself he must speak in his own way, use his 
own language, and not that of others. 

So also in art. The true artist has style, but not 
manner. Every one who travels in Europe and sees 
the paintings of the masters soon comes to know each 
one of them by his style. Style means originality, 
personality put into work. The great masters have 
style ; their imitators have manner; that is, they fol- 
low a fashion, they imitate the external form, but the 
soul escapes them. It is therefore the duty of artists 
to be unfashionable ; that is, to be themselves, to be 
genuine, to be sincere, simple, and true. 

As truthfulness is opposed to fashion in literature 
and art, so it is in religion. The real objection 
to creeds is that they tend to insincerity. Creeds 
are particular fashions of thought, crystallized and 
made authoritative and permanent. The religious 
fashion of thought in the seventeenth century in 
England was expressed in the Assembly's Cate- 
chism. Our present fashion of thinking is wholly 
different ; and yet many thousand churches in the 
United States hold to that creed, and insist that 
the religions faith and feeling of the nineteenth 
century shall be expressed in the language of the 
seventeenth. 



THE DUTY OF BEING UNFASHIONABLE, 99 

Elijah the Tishbite was an unfashionable person 
in his time. The Israelites, wishing to be popular 
with their neighbors, had taken to worshipping 
their gods. They did not wish to be singular or 
puritanical ; so when they were among the Phoeni- 
cians they worshipped Baal or Astarte. Just so a 
Unitarian now sometimes goes to the Episcopal 
Church and says, " holy, blessed, and adorable 
Trinity ! " The Jews were the Unitarians of their 
day, and worshipped only one God when they were 
at home ; but they were ashamed of being so un- 
fashionable among the Phoenicians and Canaanites, 
and by degrees they came to think it liberal to 
worship the gods of all the nations round about 
them. I suppose they called that " Liberal Juda- 
ism " or " Broad Judaism." But Elijah the Tishbite 
was of another sort. He went at once to the Kino- 

o 

of Israel, who had introduced this heathen religion, 
this polytheism, and denounced it as false and 
wrong. He defied the false gods and their prophets. 
He stood alone against them all, contending for the 
truth. Theirs was the popular and fashionable 
religion, his the unfashionable one. Baal had a 
thousand ministers ; Jehovah only one, and the 
queen was trying to kill that one. That queen 
was Jezebel, and her name has become the type 
for all female wickedness. Yet she was only a 
zealous worshipper of Baal and Astarte, and I have 
no doubt that the priests of Baal considered her 
as an eminently pious woman for persecuting the 






100 E VERY-DAY RELIGION. 

priests of Jehovah. She was like Philip of Spain, 
Madame de Maintenon in France, and Mary in 
England, who with cruel conscientiousness perse- 
cuted the Protestants. Elijah and his friends were 
the Protestants of Syria. They were few, and their 
worship was unfashionable, so they had to hide in 
caves to escape their persecutors. 

All the great religious reforms have been un- 
fashionable at first. Christianity was unfashionable 
among the Jews. Protestantism was unfashion- 
able among the Catholics. Methodism was unfash- 
ionable in the days of Wesley. Quakerism was 
unfashionable in the time of George Fox. The 
teachers of these religions went in the heat and 
bitterness of their spirit ; they were lonely, they 
were unpopular, they were the objects of hatred, 
contempt, ridicule. Of each it might have been 
said : — 

" He came, and baring his heaven-bright thought, 
He earned the base world's ban ; 
And, having vainly lived and taught, 
Gave place to a meaner man." 

He did not really live in vain, but he seemed to 
do so. 

Eeligion, in its very nature, begins in unpopu- 
larity. It is lonely at first, living in the depths of 
the soul. It does not take counsel of flesh and 
blood ; it does not know how to express itself so 
as to be understood. It begins in secret, in retire- 
ment and reserve. Afterward it may come out 



THE DUTY OF BEING UNFASHIONABLE. 101 

and become a great motive-power in the world. 
But all the prophets of God are lonely at first, and 
for a time Elijah was lonely. He lived alone 
in the hills of Gilead ; he hid in the caves of 
Horeb. He said to God : " Let me die ; I am so 
lonely I cannot bear it." Then God told him there 
were many others he had not heard of who felt just 
as he did ; who had not bowed the knee to Baal ; 
and he was comforted in the thought of that in- 
visible sympathy, that unknown brotherhood. He 
was compassed about by a great cloud of wituesses, 
though he could not see them. 

How lonely Luther was during many years, — 
alone with his solitary convictions ! He stood by 
himself against the whole Christian church, — 
against the empire, against the religion of his day 
and the civilization of his time. He, with nothing 
but truth on his side, — he could not see, he did 
not foresee, what a great multitude would follow 
him. Like all the great prophets of God, he stood 
alone and said, " I cannot do otherwise. God help 
me. Amen ! " 

Every truth is born at first in some lonely brain, 
— in the mind of some solitary thinker, who loves 
truth better than fashion, better than popularity, 
better than comfort, better than his own life. 
Elijah the Tishbite, Paul of Tarsus, Luther at 
Worms, John Wesley, George Fox, Swedenborg, 
Channing, Theodore Parker, were all willing to be 
unfashionable, lonely, despised, and rejected of men. 



102 EVERY-DAY RELIGION. 

" Therefore sprang there, even of one, and him as 
good as dead, so many as the stars of the sky in 
multitude, and as the sand which is by the sea- 
shore, innumerable." The unfashionable thinker 
of to-day sets the fashion for the age which is to 
come. Let every lonely, conscientious, God-seeking 
soul remember this and take courage, 

The Pilgrim Fathers were unfashionable people 
in their time. They were Protestants of the Prot- 
estants, regarded as ultraists, outsiders, and fanat- 
ics, by all the respectable people. Nothing suited 
them. They wished for perfect independence in 
the Church and State, perfect freedom of thought 
and life. They could find this nowhere in Europe, 
so they came to look for it in America. They 
took their wives and little ones, and came to live 
among the wolves and Indians rather than obey the 
bishops, or submit to creeds they did not believe. 
Half of them died the first winter. But they had 
faith in God. Like Abraham, they went out, not 
knowing whither they went, and sojourning in the 
land of promise as in a strange country. They 
were poor, hungry, and cold ; they had little for 
the comfort of their wives and children ; but they 
were free. They were able to worship God as they 
would, and to teach their children what they be- 
lieved the truth. So from that little seed has come 
a great tree, whose branches reach to the river and 
its roots to the sea. From their unfashionable 
puritanic conscience has come this great Union 



THE DUTY OF BEING UNFASHIONABLE. 103 

with its republican institutions ; its free press, free 
schools, free churches, free speech ; the war of 
independence ; the war for union and freedom. All 
of these lay hidden in that small seed, fidelity to 
truth, — as the vast elm whose branches shade an 
acre of ground, and wave in the sunlight in grace 
and beauty for a hundred years, once lay in a little, 
delicate, winged seed, which the summer's air car- 
ried on its lightest breath. The great American 
Union " enthroned between its subject seas," the 
pillar of modern democracy, lay rooted in that lit- 
tle unpopular, unfashionable colony which landed 
on Plymouth Bock two hundred and fifty years 

ago, 

" Keady to faint, but bearing on 
The ark of freedom, and of God." 

One of the finest fjgrires in the " Paradise Lost " 

o 

is that of Abdiel, the one angel who was not carried 
away in the great rebellion against God which Satan 
originated and organized : — 

" Among innumerable false, unmoved, 
Unshaken, unseduced, unterrified, 
His loyalty he kept, his love, his zeal ; 
Nor number, nor example, with him wrought 
To swerve from truth, nor change his constant mind 
Though single. From amidst them forth he passed 
Long way through hostile scorn, which he sustained, 
Unheeding." 

Abdiel, this "dreadless angel," was a Puritan, 
who could not be moved by numerical majorities. 



104 E VERY-DAY RELIGION. 

He was of those who say, " One roan, with truth 
on his side, is a majority."' 

Of this class of men — the seed of the Puritans 
- — New England has never been destitute. She 
has always had those who were willing to stand up 
against majorities in behalf of justice, truth, and 
freedom. Boston, our mother city, has never been 
without these independent, uncompromising men. 
After the massacre on the oth of March, Josiah 
Quincy, Jr., the Bevolutionary patriot, that soul of 
flame, who had been the life of the opposition to 
England, was asked to defend the British soldiers, 
and did so. That was a very unfashionable and 
unpopular act, and even his own father remon- 
strated with him for doing it; but he said, "It 
is my duty to defend those who come to me for 
counsel and aid." 

His son, the next Josiah Quincy, inherited his 
father's spirit. As Bepresentative from Boston in 
Congress, he opposed the slaveholding South and 
their allies at the North, and moved the impeach- 
ment of Thomas Jefferson, voting alone for his own 
motion. 

John Quincy Adams did not represent Boston 
in Congress, but he was a Puritan of the Puritans. 
He had in him a piece of Plymouth Eock. After 
occupying the Presidential chair, he went back to 
Congress, and there stood for years defending North- 
ern rights against Southern aggression. It was very 
unfashionable in those clays to oppose the slave- 



THE DUTY OF BEING UNFASHIONABLE. 105 

holders. On one memorable occasion John Quincy 
Adams stood alone three days, the object of abuse, 
and exposed to the attacks of the whole body of 
Southern Eepresentatives. 

"Let the single man plant himself on his in- 
stincts," says Emerson, " and the huge world will 
come round to him." The early Antislavery men 
planted themselves on their instinct of justice. 
They had everything else against them, — both the 
great political parties, both houses of Congress, the 
Presidents for many terms, the Supreme Court, the 
newspapers, the commercial community, all fash- 
ionable society, and the mob. They had nothing 
on their side but God and the truth ; but, in the 
brief life of one generation they have seen all come 
round to them, — both political parties, President, 
Congress, Supreme Court. It is difficult not to go 
with the multitude to do evil. It is hard for a 
young man to stand firm against the temptations 
which beset him, leading him into wrong, — hard to 
resist the allurements of pleasure, and to stand firm 
on principle. A boy learns to smoke, to drink, to 
swear, not because he likes any of these habits, 
but because it is the fashion, because it is thought 
manly, because his companions do so. Honor to 
the boy brave enough to resist such allurements ! 
The young man with a modest salary dresses ex- 
pensively, drives fast horses, gambles, because it is 
the fashion ; and, in order to meet these expenses, 
robs his employer, and perhaps goes to prison or 



106 EVERY-DAY RELIGION. 

runs away. It is not because he really enjoys this 
fast life, but because his companions are doing 
these things. It is the fashion. 

But remember that eccentricity is not necessarily 
independence. An eccentric man wastes his strength 
in opposing, superficial fashions, — matters of no 
consequence. Some reformers make a great point 
of arguing against fashions of dress, of food, and 
the like, and think to save the world by eating a 
particular kind of bread, or by adopting some very 
ugly costume. There are others who attack the 
most firmly rooted customs of society, — directing 
their assaults against property, the home, marriage, 
wages, interest, which is very much like Don Quix- 
ote's charge against the windmill. The great arms 
of the mill, going steadily round and round, threw 
the poor knight one way and his horse the other, 
and continued to revolve, quite unconscious of the 
assault. Such has been the result of the attacks 
by communists and socialists on property, marriage, 
and religion. These institutions are not fashions 
which pass away, but the gradual outcome of human 
nature after long centuries of development. 

Therefore remember that eccentricity is not al- 
ways independence. The eccentric man goes out 
of his way in the love of singularity. He is un- 
fashionable in things of no consequence ; he is a 
protestant about trifles. It seems to me unwise to 
lay stress on ritual and ceremony, on crosses and 
candles, and little boys in white gowns chanting 



THE DUTY OF BEING UNFASHIONABLE. 107 

hymns, and to think that such matters as these 
have anything to do with religion. But it seems to 
me equally unwise to attack them. They are mat- 
ters of no consequence either way. If we could find 
out the exact kind of dress which Jesus and his 
apostles wore, I do not think we should be better 
Christians for following that fashion, or for refus- 
ing to follow it. In unimportant matters it is best 
to do as other people do, and be fashionable. 1 

The best illustration of the difference between 
eccentricity and a true independence, is to be 
found in the conduct and character of Jesus Christ 
himself. Jesus conformed in common things to 
common practice. There was nothing singular or 
eccentric in his behavior. He came eating and 
drinking like other people. He dressed and con- 
versed according to the fashion of his time. He 
conformed to outward customs in his behavior. 
But inwardly he stood apart ; his soul held fast by 
the great unchanging realities. He held to the 
universal religion of the human race, with which 
fashion had nothing to do. Christianity was no 
innovation; no interruption in the course of nature; 
not supernatural, except as all divine things are 
both natural and supernatural. It was the religion 
of universal mankind, — the truth and good in all 
religions brought to the highest point. I some- 

1 "When a boy, I asked my Grandfather Freeman what Free- 
masonry was. He replied 
though not as foolish as Antimasonry . " 



108 EVERY-DAY RELIGION. 



times read long arguments written to prove that 
Jesus was not original, because some of the best 
things he said were said also by others. But Jesus 
did not pretend to invent truth ; he did not make 
anything true that was not true before. He saw 
truth, the same truth which Abraham saw, and which 
many other wise and good men have seen, more or 
less clearly. The originality of Jesus consisted in 
this, — that he saw this truth so clearly and so 
deeply that he has made others see it too. He has 
filled the world full of God's truth and love. We 
are told that Hillel, a Jewish rabbi who lived just 
before Christ, also taught the golden rule. Granted ; 
but why did mankind not hear of it when Hillel 
taught it ? Jesus saw it clearly and uttered it 
plainly, and he made it a religious rule for man- 
kind. Others, before Jesus, have taught the forgiv- 
ing love of God to the sinner ; but he taught it so 
that there is not in all Christendom an ignorant, 
humble, and unhappy child but knows that if he 
cries to God his prayer will be heard. Others have 
taught the great law of duty, the eternal distinction 
between right and wrong ; but Jesus has filled the 
human heart so full of it that its sound has gone 
out to all the earth, and its word to the end of 
the world. Others have taught immortality; but 
Christian lands have been saturated with such a 
conviction of a future life, that those who believe 
in Jesus do not die, — they look through death into 
eternity, and see the Son of Man standing on the 



THE DUTY OF BEING UNFASHIONABLE. 109 

right hand of the throne of God. It is true, in a 
very high sense, that Christianity is as old as the 
creation. The old Church fathers asserted that it 
was the original religion of mankind. Jesus makes 
a new heaven and a new earth by making old things 
young again; by renewing the primeval youth of 
the human mind and heart. The world journeys 
away from its East, and leaves behind the sunshine 
and the dawn, — journeys away into the mists of 
doubt and the weakness of unbelief. Jesus turns 
us back, so that we see again the glory of sunrise 
and the morning freshness on sea and land ; and 
we call this a new revelation, when it is only a 
revival and renewal of the universal faith of our 
race. 

The fashion of this world passes away. Every- 
thing but the deep foundations of being changes 
from day to day. Fashions in speech, in dress, in 
manners, in opinion, come and go. Creeds rise and 
fall ; churches, ceremonies, rituals alter. The things 
which are seen are temporal ; only the things not 
seen are eternal. There are some convictions which 
are above fashion, and which shine aloft in the 
heaven of human faith like stars. Sometimes mists 
may obscure them for a time, but they reappear in 
their old places, unmoved and unaltered. Such is 
the faith of man in God, duty, and immortality. 
These beliefs are untouched by any fashions of 
thought. Man, in every age, in all lands, has looked 
up, out of the finite and visible world in which 



110 EVERY-DAY RELIGION. 

he lives, to worship something unseen and eter- 
nal. He calls his God by different names, — Zeus, 
Brahma, Jove, Allah, or Jehovah. But under all 
names and forms he worships essentially the same 
being, — the highest and best he knows. Placed in 
the midst of this immense visible universe of law 
and force, he is not satisfied with anything out- 
ward, but passes beyond it all, in thought and 
faith, to some first cause, to some supreme source, 
" from whom and through whom and to whom are 
all things." We may be sure that this faith in 
God is not a transient fashion, but a permanent 
necessity of man's soul. 



VIII. 

VOLUNTARY AND AUTOMATIC 
MORALITY ; 

OR, HOW PROGRESS IS POSSIBLE. 



VIII. 

VOLUNTARY AND AUTOMATIC MORALITY; 
OR, HOW PROGRESS IS POSSIBLE. 



" Unto every one that hath shall be given, and he shall 
have abundance ; but from him that hath not shall be 
taken away even that which he hath" 

nnHIS seems rather hard. It seems hard that a 
-■- man who has only a little should have that 
little taken from him ; and it does not seem fair 
that because another man has already a great deal, 
more should be bestowed on him. If this were 
something arbitrary, it would be very unintelligible ; 
but I think we can understand the meaning of it, 
and see why it is right and good, if we consider it 
to be a law of human nature and human society. 
The law is a very beneficial one, for human pro- 
gress depends on it. The working of this law makes 
the individual better, and the world better. In fact, 
there could be no such thing as human civilization 
without it. 

The law expressed in the saying is this : that 
when we use our powers and faculties we gain more 



114 EVERf-DAY RELIGION. 

power and more faculty ; that when we neglect to 
use them, they decrease, and at last perish. We 
cannot possess anything except by using it. If we 
do not use our powers they are either taken away 
entirely, or else cease to be of any advantage to us. 

Such is the case with bodily organs, but such is 
still more the case with mental organs. Practice 
makes perfect, it is said. But notice this ; it is not 
undirected practice, or the random use of any 
power, but it is the carefully arranged practice 
which improves it. In other words, it is practice 
directed toward an end. 

If, for instance, one wishes to improve his mem- 
ory, he cannot do it by endeavoring to recollect 
at random a variety of facts or words. He must 
arrange a list of what he is most apt to forget, 
and study this carefully till he has mastered it 
and fixed it firmly in his mind. Then he can go 
on to something else. In order to improve our 
powers, we must work for a definite purpose, and 
with a carefully arranged method. 

Eobert Houdin, the celebrated French juggler, 
tells us how he acquired one element of his power, — 
an extreme quickness and accuracy of observation. 
His father often took him through one of the 
boulevards of Paris, crowded with people, and led 
him slowly past a shop window in which were ex- 
hibited a multitude of different articles, and then 
made him tell how many he had been able to no- 
tice and recollect. This practice so strengthened 



AUTOMATIC MORALITY. 115 

and quickened the perceptive powers, that at last 
he became able to remember every article in a large 
shop window by only walking past it a single time. 
The more he exercised the faculty, the more devel- 
oped it became. The more he had of this quick- 
ness of observation, the more was given to him. 

A friend of mine, President Thomas Hill, told 
me that when he was on the School Committee at 
Waltham, he endeavored to learn how far the per- 
ceptive power of the primary school children might 
be improved. For this end he would take a hand- 
ful of beans, throw a few of them on the table, and 
instantly cover them with his other hand, and then 
ask the children how many there were under his 
hand. He told me that they improved until they 
could count them accurately up to ten or twelve 
during the moment that they lay uncovered on 
the table. 

In the same way acrobats and gymnasts, by care- 
ful and systematic training, develop herculean 
strength of limb and power of equipoise. I have 
seen a man stand on one foot on a slack wire, which 
was swinging to and fro, and balance four or five 
dinner-plates on as many sticks held in his left 
hand. As one improves any power by careful 
training, he acquires more. He has much, and so 
more is given him. 

But if we neglect to use and improve our powers, 
they degenerate, and at last disappear. The fishes 
in the Mammoth Cave have lost their eyes by not 



116 E VERY-DAY RELIGION. 

using them, in that Egyptian darkness. So if men 
do not employ a power, they at last become in- 
capable of using it. Cessation of function, from 
whatever cause, is invariably followed by wasting 
of the organ in which the function has its seat. 
The gland which does not secrete, diminishes in 
bulk ; the nerve that does not transmit impressions, 
wastes away ; the muscle which does not contract, 
withers. The arm of a blacksmith and the legs of 
a mountaineer enlarge ; but the arms of the Hindoo 
devotee, which are held in the same position for 
years, not allowed to move, shrink and shrivel in 
size and force. 

The intellectual and moral organs, like the physi- 
cal, are liable to atrophy when not exercised. If 
a person does not take pains to observe, and to 
remember what he observes, the power of observ- 
ing and remembering gradually decays. He who 
does not think seriously on any subject will become 
frivolous, and not be able to apply his mind at 
all. Those unfortunate young people who are not 
obliged to work for a living, and who do not work 
from a sense of duty, are at last unable to take hold 
of any serious enterprise. They lose the power of 
work, and spend their days in idleness, and have 
none of that divine joy which comes from the sense 
of accomplishment. They can never say, " I have 
finished that piece of work ! " The most unhappy 
people I have known were those who had nothing 
to do. It is a fortunate thing for most of us that 



AUTOMATIC MORALITY. 117 

we are ohliged to work, and so acquire the discip- 
line, the education, and the content which result 
from doing with our might what our hand finds 
to do. 

To him who hath knowledge, more shall be given, 
and he shall have abundance. Knowledge in the 
mind is such a vital and vitalizing power that it 
makes the intellect active to see, to learn, to remem- 
ber. The first foreign language we learn is difficult ; 
the second is easier ; the third is acquired with still 
greater facility. If we study the history of one 
nation, or one epoch, we find ourselves attracted to 
another and another. The person who has studied 
botany finds new plants wherever he goes. He 
who travels with an empty, untaught mind, comes 
back nearly as ignorant as he went ; but the geolo- 
gist, the artist, the man who has read geography 
and history, or who knows well any industry or 
manufacture or art, is able to see something new 
wherever he goes. Just as the merchant must 
send out some freight in his vessel in order to bring 
back a cargo, the traveller must take some knowl- 
edge with him abroad if he wishes to bring any 
home. 

We have heard of persons who have stayed in 
the house and avoided society until it became 
impossible for them to leave their home or their 
room. We owe something to society ; we can be of 
use to others by our kindly, cheerful companion- 
ship ; but these people had buried their talent in 



118 EVERY-DAY RELIGION. 

the earth, until at last it was taken from them. 
Solitary confinement, when inflicted as a punish- 
ment, is considered a very severe one; but such 
persons inflict it on themselves, — -living for years 
alone, and at last unable to go out, even if they 
wish to do so. 

. So people who do not give, lose at last the power 
of giving. I have known rich men who were abso- 
lutely unable to give, because they had not kept 
up the habit of regular and continued generosity. 
The only way to escape that malady — for it is a 
real disease — is to give away, regularly and on 
principle, a certain proportion of one's income. 
And this law applies to all, — to those in moderate 
circumstances no less than to the wealthy. It was 
the man who had only a single talent who hid it in 
the earth, not the one who had five. If you do not 
give now, when your means are small, what reason 
have you to think that you would do better if you 
were wealthy ? If every poor man in Boston gave 
according to his means, all the charities of- the city 
would be amply supplied. Let us never forget the 
epitaph on a tombstone, which teaches the true law 
on this subject: "What I spent, I had; what I 
kept, I lost; what I gave, I have still." 

So, likewise, those who do not care to see the 
truth, lose at last the power of seeing it. I have 
known lawyers, to whom justice and truth were 
supreme ; honorable, high-minded men, who never 
condescended to any low cunning, but used argu- 



AUTOMATIC MORALITY. 119 

ments which were convincing to themselves in 
order to convince others. The bar of this city has 
always had such lawyers, — men whose wish and 
effort it was " to execute justice and to maintain 
truth." Such men, as they grow older, grow wiser, 
stronger, greater. They love truth, and truth is 
given to them, and they have abundance. 

But I have known others, members of this same 
grand profession, whose only object was to win 
their cause, and that in any way. They said, not 
what they believed true, but what they thought 
they might make seem true to others. Their object 
was not to convince ; but to deceive, to confuse, to 
bewilder ; to mislead, to win their cause by appeals 
to prejudice, to ignorance, to passion. And so at 
last they confused their own sense, and lost the 
power of distinguishing between truth and false- 
hood, right and wrong. They had buried their tal- 
ent in the earth, and it was taken from them. 

Truth is such a sacred thing, so holy, so venerable, 
that we must not trifle with it. In public speech 
and in private conversation some persons talk for 
effect, regardless of accuracy. They say what will 
produce an impression, assert extraordinary facts, 
aim at excitement, and at last lie unconsciously and 
automatically. They are called liars; but it is a 
disease, not a wilful purpose. They do not know, 
a-t the time, that they are saying what is not true. 
Such is the evil which results from talking merely 
for effect, merely to produce an impression. 



120 E VERY-DAY RELIGION. 

Truth-telling becomes a habit, and at last the man 
cannot help telling the truth. So untruth-telling 
becomes also a habit, and the man cannot help 
lying. Profanity becomes a habit. The child of 
God, made by him for immortality, and blessed 
every day by his goodness, living and moving and 
having his being in God, goes about from morning 
till night blaspheming the name of his protector 
and friend, calling down damnation on himself, and 
profaning everything sacred with oaths and curses. 
And perhaps all the time he does not know that he 
is doing so. This habit has become automatic and 

o 

unconscious. He has deadened in his soul all sense 
of the reality of spiritual things, Until they have 
become empty names, with which he fills up the 
gaps in his speech while he is trying to think of 
something to say. 

We may state the law thus: "Any habitual 
course of conduct changes voluntary actions into 
automatic or involuntary actions." This can be 
illustrated by the physical constitution of man. 
Some of our bodily acts are voluntary, some in- 
voluntary; some partly one and partly the other. 
The heart beats seventy or eighty times a min- 
ute all our life long, without any will of ours. 
Whether we are asleep or awake, the heart drives 
the blood, by its steadily moving piston, through all 
the arteries and veins, more than a hundred thou- 
sand times every twenty-four hours. The heart 
beats thirty-six million times every year, without 



AUTOMATIC MORALITY. 121 

any will of ours ; and if it suspends or relaxes 
its action for a few moments, we faint away and 
become unconscious. If it stops its action for 
a minute, we die. -The lungs, in the same way, 
perpetually inhale and exhale breath, whether we 
intend it or not ; and if the lungs should suspend 
their action, we should die. But we can exercise 
a little volition over the action of the lungs ; we 
can breathe voluntarily, taking long breaths. Thus 
the action of the lungs is partly automatic and 
partly voluntary, while the mechanical action of the 
heart is wholly automatic, and the chemical action 
of the digestive organs is the same. But some acts, 
voluntary at first, become by habit automatic. A 
child, beginning to walk, takes every single step by 
a separate act of will ; beginning to read, he looks 
at every single letter. After a while, he walks and 
reads by a habit, which has become involuntary. 
He does not exercise a separate act of will in tak- 
ing each step or looking at each letter. He walks 
and reads unconscious of the separate steps in the 
process. 

So, also, it is with man's moral and spiritual 
nature. By practice he forms habits, and habitual 
action is automatic action, requiring no exercise of 
will except at the beginning of the series of acts. 
The law of association does the rest. 

So. to him who hath shall be given. As volun- 
tary acts are transformed into automatic, the will is 
set free to devote itself to higher efforts and larger 



122 EVERY-DAY RELIGION. 

attainments. After telling the truth awhile by an 
effort, we tell the truth naturally, necessarily, auto- 
matically. After giving to good objects for a while 
from principle, we give as a matter of course. 
Honesty becomes automatic; self-control becomes 
automatic. We rule over our spirit, repress ill- 
temper, keep clown bad feelings, first by an effort, 
afterwards as a matter of course. Temperance be- 
comes automatic ; it costs a good deal of effort and 
self-denial at first, but at last it takes care of 
itself. 

Possibly these virtues really become incarnate 
in the bodily organization. Possibly goodness is 
made flesh and becomes consolidate in the fibres 
of the brain. Vices, beginning in the soul, seem 
to become at last bodily diseases ; why may not 
virtues follow the same law ? One purpose of the 
body may be thus to receive and retain the results 
of past effort, that spiritual acts may be anchored 
and accumulated by physical organization. Thus 
the body may be the best servant of the soul, pack- 
ing away and watching like a faithful steward all 
its master's treasures, and in the future life the 
risen or spiritual body may retain them all. 

If it were not for some such law of accumulation 
as this, the work of life would have to be begun 
forever anew. Formation of character would be 
impossible. We should be incapable of progress, 
our whole strength being always employed in bat- 
tling with our first enemies, learning evermore anew 



AUTOMATIC MORALITY. 123 

our earliest lessons. But, by our present consti- 
tution, he who has taken one step can take another, 
and life may become a perpetual advance from good 
to better. 

This is the one and sufficient reward of all 
virtue, the one sufficient punishment of all wrong- 
doing, that right actions and wrong actions gradu- 
ally harden into character. The reward of the good 
man is, that having chosen truth and pursued it, 
it becomes at last a part of his own nature, a happy 
companion of all his life. The condemnation of 
the bad man is, that when light has come into the 
world he has chosen darkness, and so the light 
within him becomes darkness. Do not envy the 
bad man's triumphs and worldly successes. Every 
one of them is a rivet fastening him to evil, making 
it more difficult for him to return to good ; making- 
it impossible but for the redeeming power of God, 
which has become incarnate in Christ, in order to 
seek and save the lost. 

The highest graces of all — Faith, Hope, and Love 
— obey the same law. By trusting in God when 
we see him ever so faintly, we come at last to real- 
ize, as by another sense, his divine presence in all 
things. By praying to him when we can only say, 
" God ! — if there be a God — save my soul — 
if I have a soul," we at last learn to talk with this 
Heavenly Friend just as we would with an earthly 
friend. As, on a summer's day, when we sit among 
the pines, though we do not see the wind, nor know 



124 E VERY-DAY RELIGION. 

whence it cometh or whither it goeth, we yet hear 
its silvery voice above our heads, and feel its cool 
breath kissing our cheek; so, though we do not 
know how God answers prayer, we have the sense 
of strength, of content, of kindly purpose, of love, 
joy, and peace, making our whole life useful to 
others and satisfactory to ourselves. Faith in God, 
at first an effort, at last becomes automatic and 
instinctive. 

Thus, too, faith in immortality solidifies into an 
instinct. As we live from and for infinite, divine, 
eternal realities, these become a part of our knowl- 
edge. Socrates did not convince himself of his 
immortality by his arguments ; but by spending 
a long life in intimate converse with the highest 
truths and noblest ends, he at last reached the point 
where he could not help believing in immortality. 
As the pure in heart see God, so the pure in heart 
also see immortality. Death fades away and be- 
comes nothing ; it is unthinkable, impossible. " He 
who believes in me," said Jesus, "cannot die." 
He who enters into his thoughts, sympathizes with 
his purposes, partakes of his spirit, knows that 
death is nothing. Thus it is that Christ abolishes 
death. The true resurrection is rising with Christ 
to a higher life ; as the Apostle says, " If ye, then, 
be risen with Christ, seek the things that are 
above." 

The moral of all this is evident. Every man, 
every woman, every child has some talent, some 



AUTOMATIC MORALITY. 125 

power, some opportunity of getting good and doing 
good. Each day offers some occasion for using this 
talent. As we use it, it gradually increases, im- 
proves, becomes native to the character. As we 
neglect it, it dwindles, withers, and disappears. This 
is the stern but benign law by which we live. 
This makes character real and enduring; this 
makes progress possible ; this turns men into angels 
and virtue into goodness. And thus, at last, 

" Love is an unerring light, 
And joy its own security." 



IX. 
TRUE AND FALSE MANLINESS. 



IX. 

TRUE AND FALSE MANLINESS. 



1\ /TANLINESS means perfect manhood, as wo- 
-LVX man li n ess implies perfect womanhood. Man- 
liness is the character of a man as he ought to be, 
as he was meant to be. It expresses the qualities 
which go to make a perfect man, — truth, courage, 
conscience, freedom, energy, self-possession, self-con- 
trol. But it does not exclude gentleness, tenderness, 
compassion, modesty. A man is not less manly, 
but more so, because he is gentle. In fact, our 
word " gentleman " shows that a typical man must 
also be a gentle man. 

By manly qualities the world is carried forward. 
The manly spirit shows itself in enterprise, the love 
of meeting difficulties and overcoming them, — the 
resolution which will not yield, which patiently 
perseveres, and does not admit the possibility of 
defeat. It enjoys hard toil, rejoices in stern labor, 
is ready to make sacrifices, to suffer and bear disas- 
ter patiently. It is generous, giving itself to a good 
cause not its own ; it is public-spirited, devoting 

9 



130 EVERY-DAY RELIGION. 

itself to the general good with no expectation of 
reward. It is ready to defend unpopular truth, to 
stand by those who are wronged, to uphold the 
weak. Having resolved, it does not go back, but 
holds on, through good report and evil, sure that the 
right must win at last. And so it causes truth to 
prevail, and keeps up the standard of a noble 
purpose in the world. 

But as most good things have their counterfeits, 
so there is false manliness which imitates these 
great qualities, though at heart it is without them. 
Instead of strength of will, it is only wilful ; in place 
of courage, it has audacity. True manliness does 
what it believes risht ; false manliness, what it 
chooses to do. Freedom, to one, means following 
his own convictions of truth ; to the other it means 
thinking as he pleases, and doing as he likes. The 
one is reverent, the other rude ; one is courteous, 
the other overbearing ; one is brave, the other 
foolhardy ; one is modest, the other self-asserting. 
False manliness is cynical, contemptuous, and tyran- 
nical to inferiors. The true has respect for all men, 
is tender to the sufferer, is modest and kind. The 
good type uses its strength to maintain good cus- 
toms, to improve the social condition, to defend 
order. The other imagines it to be manly to defy 
law, to be independent of the opinions of the wise, 
to sneer at moral obligation, to consider itself supe- 
rior to the established principles of mankind. 

A false notion of manliness leads boys astray. 



TRUE AND FALSE MANLINESS. 131 

All boys wish to be manly ; but they often try to 
become so by copying the vices of men rather than 
their virtues. They see men drinking, smoking, 
swearing; so these poor little fellows sedulously 
imitate such bad habits, thinking they are making 
themselves more like men. They mistake rudeness 
for strength, disrespect to parents for independence. 
They read wretched stories about boy brigands and 
boy detectives, and fancy themselves heroes when 
they break the laws, and become troublesome and 
mischievous. Out of such false influences the crimi- 
nal classes are recruited. Many a little boy who 
only wishes to be manly, becomes corrupted and 
debased by the bad examples around him and the 
bad literature which he reads. The cure for this is 
to give him good books, show him truly noble ex- 
amples from life and history, and make him under- 
stand how infinitely above this mock-manliness is 
the true courage which ennobles human nature. 

In a recent awful disaster, amid the blackness 
and darkness and tempest, the implacable sea and 
the pitiless storm, — when men's hearts were fail- 
ing them from terror, and women and children had 
no support but faith in a Divine Providence and a 
coming immortality, — the dreadful scene was illu- 
minated by the courage and manly devotion of those 
who risked their own lives to save the lives of 
others. Such heroism is like a sunbeam breaking 
through the tempest. It shows us the real worth 
there is in man. No matter how selfish mankind 



132 EVERY-DAY RELIGION. 

may seem, whenever hours like these come, which 
try men's souls, they show that the age of chivalry 
has not gone ; that though 

" The knights are dust, and their good swords rust," 

there are as high-hearted heroes now as ever. Fire- 
men rush into a flaming house to save women and 
children. Sailors take their lives in their hands to 
rescue their fellow-men from a wreck. They save 
them at this great risk, not because they are friends 
or relatives, but because they are fellow-men. 

Courage is an element of manliness. It is more 
than readiness to encounter clanger and death, for 
we are not often called to meet such perils. It is 
every-day courage which is most needed, — - that 
which shrinks from no duty because it is difficult ; 
which makes one ready to say what he believes, 
when his opinions are unpopular; which does not 
allow him to postpone a duty, but makes him ready 
to encounter it at once ; a courage which is not 
afraid of ridicule when one believes himself right ; 
which is not the slave of custom, the fool of fashion. 
Such courage as this, in man or woman or child, 
is true manliness. It is infinitely becoming in all 
persons. It does not seek display, it is often the 
courage of silence no less than speech; it is modest 
courage, unpretending though resolute. It holds 
fast to its convictions and principles, whether men 
hear or whether they forbear. 

Truthfulness is another element of true manliness. 



TRUE AND FALSE MANLINESS. 133 

Lies usually come from cowardice, because men are 
afraid of standing by their flag, because they shrink 
from opposition, or because they are conscious of 
something wrong which they cannot defend, and so 
conceal. Secret faults, secret purposes, habits of 
conduct of which we are ashamed, lead to falsehood, 
and falsehood is cowardice. And thus the sinner 
is almost necessarily a coward. He shrinks from 
the light ; he hides himself in darkness. Therefore 
if we wish to be manly, we must not do anything 
of which we are ashamed. He who lives by firm 
principles of truth and right, who deceives no one, 
injures no one, who therefore has nothing to hide, 
he alone is manly. The bad man may be audacious, 
but he has no true courage. His manliness is only 
a pretence, an empty shell, a bold . demeanor, with 
no real firmness behind it. 

True manliness is humane. It says, "We who 
are strong ought to bear the infirmities of the 
weak." Its work is to protect those who cannot 
defend themselves ; to stand between the tyrant 
and the slave, the oppressor and his victim. It is 
identical in all times with the spirit of chivalry 
which led the good knights to wander in search of 
robbers, giants, and tyrannical lords, those who op- 
pressed the poor and robbed helpless women and 
orphans of their rights. There are no tyrant bar- 
ons now, but the spirit of tyrann}^ and cruelty is 
still to be found. The good knight to-day is he 
who provides help for the blind, the deaf and dumb, 



134 E VERY-DAY RELIGION. 

the insane ; who defends animals from being cruelly 
treated, rescues little children from bad usage, and 
seeks to give working men and women their rights. 
He protects all these sufferers from that false man- 
liness which is brutal and tyrannical to the weak, 
abusing its power over women and children and 
domestic animals. The true knights to-clay are 
those who organize and carry on the societies to 
prevent cruelty, or to enforce the laws against those 
who for a little gain make men drunkards. The 
giants and dragons to-day are those cruelties and 
brutalities which use their power to ill-treat those 
who are at their mercy. 

True manliness is tender and loving ; false man- 
liness, cold and hard, cynical and contemptuous. 
The bravest and most heroic souls are usually the 
most loving. Garibaldi, Kossuth, Mazzini, the 
heroes of our times ; Luther, who never feared 
the face of man ; Gustavus Adolphus and William 
of Orange, are examples of this union of courage 
and tenderness. Bold as lions in the defence of 
the right, such men in their homes and their private 
life have a womanly gentleness. False manliness 
is unfeeling, with no kindly sympathies, rude and 
rough and overbearing. True manliness is tem- 
perate; it is moderate, it exercises self-control, it 
is capable of self-denial and renunciation. False 
manliness is self-willed and self-indulgent. 

The danger which besets those who have strong 
wills is to be self-willed. If they confound this 



TRUE AND FALSE MANLINESS. 135 

self-will with manly force and persistency, with 
self-dependence and self-reliance, they are apt to 
become overbearing, self-indulgent, and intem- 
perate. Then they lose the power of self-control, 
and this results not in strength, but weakness. He 
who cannot rule his own spirit, govern his desires, 
restrain his appetites, is no longer master, but 
slave. He is the slave of circumstances, of tempta- 
tion. He cannot do the thing he would. 

Shakspeare, with his inimitable knowledge of 
human nature, has given us the process by which 
this pure will, not subject to law, passes finally 
into mere appetite. He makes Ulysses tell how 
order, rule, and place make the harmony of the 
world ; how the very heavens observe degree and 
priority, " proportion and office in the line of 
order." He says that if this respect for order, 
degree, and law should cease in society, mere force 
would become supreme : — 

" Strength should be lord of imbecility, 
And the rude son should strike the father dead : 
Force should be right ; or rather, right and wrong, 
Between whose endless jar justice resides, 
Should lose their names, and so should justice too. 
Then everything includes itself in power, 
Power into will, will into appetite ; 
And appetite, a universal wolf, 
Must make perforce a universal prey, 
And, last, eat up himself." 

The English, a noble nation, have been gifted 
with an immense strength of will. By this the 



136 EVERY-DAY RELIGION. 

people of that little island have been able to grow 
into a first-class power, and conquer vast regions 
of the world. Fortunately this nation has also a 
sense of justice, and thus its sway of foreign lands 
and subject races has been commonly beneficent. 
But the danger of the English is to worship power 
in itself, and then they relapse into Paganism. We 
see this tendency to a Pagan worship of mere will 
in many ways. We find it cropping out in English 
history. Let a subject race rebel, and the English 
become, like the Romans, relentless, merciless. 
They do not inquire into the oppression which has 
caused the rebellion, but the nation goes into a sort 
of blind rage for putting clown the people who have 
dared to resist the authority of England. So it 
was in our American Bevolution, so in India, in 
Jamaica, in Abyssinia, in South Africa. The Eng- 
lish have had wise and just statesmen, who, like 
Chatham, Gladstone, John Bright, have erected 
justice above power ; and these men are the real 
salvation of England. We also see this tendency 
to admire mere will in English literature, — in the 
novels where the hero is a man of prodigious force, 
which he exerts in a reckless way ; in books like 
Euskin's, in which his own private opinion stands 
in the place of reason and argument. Especially 
we see it in the downward course of Carlyle's 
mind. Carlyle, in his early writings, set forth a 
religion of justice, and proclaimed the divinity of 
truth. He made goodness seem the only reality. 



TRUE AND FALSE MANLINESS. 137 

Then his influence was a blessed one. But he 
went on insensibly to substitute sincerity in the 
place of truth, as his ideal. He asserted that to be 
sincere was to be right. Next, this worship of 
sincerity became a worship of self-reliance, and 
that, again, became a worship of will, and at last 
he gave us as his ideal Frederick the Great, — a 
man with no sense of justice, who was a striking- 
example of a self-will which defied man and 
God. This downward course of Carlyle's thought 
was marked by a like deterioration of his charac- 
ter. He became moody, overbearing, and tyran- 
nical ; wretched himself, he made those about him 
wretched. 

The course of Emerson's mind was in the' oppo- 
site direction. He began by laying too much stress, 
perhaps, on pure self-reliance. But he passed up 
steadily into the region where justice, law, love, 
purity, and truth are the Olympian powers. He 
passed from the " Initial " to the " Celestial " love ; 
to that which has 

' ' heartily designed 
The benefit of broad mankind." 

True manliness differs also from the false in its 
attitude to woman. Its knightly feeling makes it 
wish to defend her rights, to maintain her claims, 
to be her protector and advocate. False manliness 
wishes to show its superiority by treating women 
as inferiors. It flatters them, but it does not 



188 E VERY-DAY RELIGION. 

respect them. It fears their competition on equal 
levels, and wishes to keep them confined, not with- 
in walls, as in the Mohammedan regions, but be- 
hind the more subtle barriers of opinion, prejudice, 
and supposed feminine aptitudes. True manliness 
holds out the hand to woman, and says, " Do what- 
ever you are able to do; whatever God meant 
you to do. Neither you nor I can tell what that 
is till all artificial barriers are removed, and you 
have full opportunity to try." Manly strength re- 
spects womanly purity, sympathy, and grace of 
heart. And this is the real chivalry of the present 
hour. 

Finally, true manliness draws its strength from 
religion. It looks up to whatever things are good, 
true, and excellent. It reverences the divine ele- 
ment in all earthly phenomena. Seeing an infinite 
grandeur manifested in the lowest and most minute 
works of the creative power, it reverences God as 
the all in all. False manliness imagines that it 
shows its superiority by irreverence, by turning sa- 
cred things into jest ; by looking with contempt on 
the great faiths of .mankind. But unless we have 
faith in something above ourselves, our strength 
goes out of us. Doubt and unbelief may be some- 
times unavoidable, may not be in any sense blama- 
ble, but they always take away our strength. Our 
power comes from a boundless faith and hope ; from 
a conviction that amid these changes of time 
there is something unchangeable and eternal. Sur- 



TRUE AND FALSE MANLINESS. 139 

rounded by death and decay, we need to rely on 
the incorruptible and immortal essences of being. 
Eeverence for a divine presence in the soul and in 
nature is the support of true manliness. Accord- 
ing to Paul, Jesus is the example of a perfect man. 
Paul knew what manliness was ; his own life was 
a long battle, a knightly conflict, full of courage, 
endurance, independence, freedom, devotion to all 
things good. No opposition could daunt him, no 
power turn him from his chosen path. But when 
he wrote from his prison to the Ephesians, instead 
of boasting of his own achievements, he puts him- 
self by the side of his readers as one who is still 
endeavoring to grow up into the perfect manliness 
of Christ. 

Jesus was the perfect man because always draw- 
ing power from on high, and devoting that power 
to the good of his fellow-men. The harmony of his 
soul was so entire, that separate qualities are scarcely 
seen. We do not often speak of Jesus as a philan- 
thropist, a reformer, a thinker, a prophet, a saint; 
but rather as the balanced fulness of all human 
powers ; never hurrying, never resting ; always about 
his Father's business, friendly with the lowliest, one 
to whom all men were equally dear. We do not 
think of making any analysis of his character. It 
is the unity and harmony of all traits which im- 
press us. It is this which constitutes his great 
influence, — that he was always one with God 
and one with man. 



140 EVERY-DAY RELIGION. 

We therefore find Jesus to be both master and 
brother, teacher and friend, because when in com- 
munion with his spirit we also grow up in all 
things into a truer manliness. It is a great blessing 
to have such a friend, whom not having seen we 
jet can love ; in whom, though now we see him 
not, yet believing, we can rejoice with joy unspeak- 
able and full of glory. 



X. 



THE RUDDER, COMPASS, CHART, 

AND SAILS IN MAN. 



X. 



THE RUDDER, COMPASS, CHART, AND 
SAILS IN MAN. 



EVERY part of a vessel is curious and admirable. 
Among the works of men, this is one of those 
which most nearly approaches a work of nature, 
and seems almost alive. A ship is partly copied 
from a fish, — adapted by its form, like that of a 
fish, to cut through the water with the smallest 
resistance. It is also partly copied from a bird ; its 
sails, like the wings of a bird, are filled with air, 
and give motion to the body. In a ship every part 
must be in symmetrical relation to every other part ; 
every spar, block, rope, cable, anchor, capstan, must 
be exactly proportioned to each other ; and so a ship 
becomes a work of art. From these harmonious 
proportions, imposed by the stern law of necessity, 
emerges beauty. Make a thing perfectly useful, ex- 
actly adapted to its object, neither too much nor 
too little, and it becomes a work of art. Let the 
object be a high and difficult one, and it becomes 
high art and beautiful art. Perfect utility appears 



144 E VERY-DAY RELIGION. 

identical with perfect beauty. The men who built 
ships never thought of beaut) 7 : they thought of 
use; but beauty came of itself with the use. 

But, curious as is every part of a vessel to a lands- 
man, the most curious is the steering apparatus. 
There is a very small helm, almost out of sight, 
bearing no seeming relation in size to the vessel 
itself ; but a slight change in its direction alters the 
vessel's course. This appears almost unaccountable. 
That by means of its helm a ship can be made to 
sail nearly against the wind, to go about, to lie to, 
to obey with the docility of an intelligent creature, 
is truly wonderful. This enormous mass, plunging 
on through the water, can, by a single touch of the 
hand on the wheel, be made to go to the right or left, 
and so can be directed from Boston harbor all the 
way to China. The rudder of a vessel was a won- 
derful discovery. To be sure, all that it does is to 
turn the ship either to the right or to the left ; but 
that power is enough to enable the commander to 
direct it as he will, in spite of storms or calms, of 
ocean currents, of fogs, sunken rocks, iron-bound 
coasts; moving by night and by day, and going 
round the world to the port determined on by the 
merchant in his counting-room in Boston. 

Man also has in him a rudder, by which to steer 
at every moment. As the ship's helm is the most 
mysterious part of its construction, so the rudder in 
man is the most inexplicable part of his organiza- 
tion. It is the function of free choice. It consists 



THE RUDDER, ETC., IN MAN. 145 

simply in the power, at every moment, of turning to 
the right or left, of choosing this or that, of doing 
or not doing, saying yes or no, resolving or declin- 
ing to resolve. Man is not free to be anything he 
chooses, or do anything he pleases. He is limited by 
stern laws, — laws of organization, laws of circum- 
stance. A man born in Africa must be an African, 
with African character, with African education ; he 
cannot be a Frenchman or a New Englander. It 
was by no choice of mine that I was born when I 
was and where I was. It was by no merit or fault 
of mine that I have such an organization of mind 
and body, and no other. Human freedom does not 
give a man the power of changing his nature ; but, 
being what he is, it gives the power of choosing his 
aim, and going toward it, under the limitation of 
these foreordained conditions. 

In steering a ship it is not enough to have a 
rudder; we must have something by which to steer; 
we must know the direction. On land, the fixed 
objects around show us which way we are going ; 
but at sea, where all is in apparent motion, we 
must have something fixed by which to direct our 
course. The sun by day and the stars by night 
meet this need ; but in cloudy weather and stormy 
days sun and stars are hidden. Hence extended 
navigation became only possible when the compass 
needle was discovered. Like other great discoveries, 
no one knows precisely when or by whom it came. 
The need created the invention. Now, by help of 

10 



146 E VER Y-DA Y RELIGION. 

the little needle in its hanging box, always trem- 
bling toward the north by its mysterious inward 
attraction, we can cross oceans without sight of sun 
or stars, and always know which way we are going. 

In man, too, there is a similar means of knowing 
his direction at every moment. The compass in 
man we call conscience. It always points toward 
the right. The right is the North star of conscience. 
Conscience says, " You are doing right," " You are 
doing wrong." It does not, indeed, tell us what is 
right, or what wrong ; but it tells us something is 
right, and something wrong. It performs a double 
office ; first, it gives us the great ideas of right and 
wrong, — duty, obligation ; and then it approves 
when we do what we believe to be right ; disap- 
proves when we do what we believe to be wrong. 
It is sometimes objected that if there were such 
a moral sense in man all men would agree as 
to what is right and wrong; whereas it is certain 
that men differ. This objection is valid against 
the idea that conscience is a code of ethics. It 
is not. It guides us according to the code we 
have. But it is the check and restraint on the 
selfish passions, the selfish will, the personal ambi- 
tions. It points forever to a great commanding law 
above man's egotistical desires, and so lifts us above 
ourselves. It says, "Xo matter what you wish, 
what you desire, there is something which you ought 
to do." Thus it emancipates man from the domin- 
ion of mere selfish desire. Conscience gives us 



THE RUDDER, ETC., IN MAN. 147 

warning if we are going wrong. When the sun and 
the stars are darkened, and the clouds return after 
rain ; when we cannot see God clearly ; when the 
great intuitions of the soul are clouded over, this 
inward monitor still continues its faithful, humble 
task. It says to us, " This is right." It says, " This 
is wrong." If we attend to its warning we shall 
hardly ever go astray. We can sophisticate it if 
we choose ; we can reason ourselves into the belief 
that black is white and white black; we can put 
darkness for light, and light for darkness ; bitter for 
sweet, and sweet for bitter. But in the depths of 
the soul, when we are quiet, and listen to the still 
small voice, it will warn us of our clanger, and lead 
us back to the truth and right. We can refuse to 
attend to it, just as the mariner may neglect to look 
at his compass ; but the compass is there, waiting 
to be looked at, and conscience is there, waiting to 
be listened to. 

In steering a ship, besides the rudder and com- 
pass, we must also have a chart. We must have a 
chart of the ocean and of its shores, so as to know 
in what direction to steer, to know the shoals and 
currents, the soundings off the coasts, the hidden 
reefs and rocks, the harbors and their bearings. The 
compass does not tell us all this ; this we learn from 
the chart. The compass only tells us which way 
is north, and which way south. If we had the 
compass and rudder, but no chart, we would not 
undertake a voyage. 



148 E VERY-DAY RELIGION. 

Man also needs a chart to tell him which way to 
steer, what he ought to do and to be. God has 
given him this chart in his reason, — the light which 
lightens every man who cometh into the world. 
When we are quiet, and listen to its voice, it teaches 
us. We are often too busy to listen to it, too much 
immersed in daily cares and anxieties to stop and 
hear it. So we need other teachers, outward guides 
to lead us. 

This is why prophets and teachers are necessary 
to man. His freedom and his conscience are not 
enough. They do not inform him of his duties, his 
dangers, his hopes. They do not show him the 
object of life, the needs of the soul, the purposes of 
God concerning it. The Bible is the record of the 
revelations made to such teachers. The Bible is 
not the rudder ; the rudder is freedom. It is not 
the compass ; the compass is conscience. But it is 
the chart, it is the map ; it is to be consulted every 
day in order to show us what there is around us, 
and what before us, in time and in eternity. Because 
the sailor has a rudder and a compass ; because he 
has the sight of the glorious sun and the unchang- 
ing stars ; because he has scientific instruments by 
which he can take observations of the heavenly 
bodies to find his latitude and longitude ; because 
he carries a chronometer to give him the true time 
at Greenwich, can he therefore do without his 
charts ? No ; these are necessary as well as the 
others. Both are necessary ; he cannot dispense 



THE RUDDER, ETC., IN MAN. 149 

with either. So, because we have in us noble in- 
stincts and great powers, because we have achieved 
great advances in science, does it follow that we can 
dispense with the intuitions of past prophets, the 
wisdom of sages, and the inspired lives of apostles ? 
No! 

It is easy to point out the errors in the Bible. It 
is not infallible ; no human thing is infallible, and 
the Bible is intensely human. Therein is its power. 
Your friend, noble and generous, the man you love 
the most, whose life brings you comfort, warning, 
strength, courage, on whom you lean every day, to 
whom you go for advice and sympathy, — he is not 
infallible ; he may make mistakes. But will you 
give him up on that account, sneer at him, ridicule 
him ? Moses made mistakes, in geology and as- 
tronomy, — the mistakes of his time ; for God did 
not send him to teach astronomy or geology. But 
Moses said : " There is one God," when men wor- 
shipped a thousand gods. He said : " Thou shalt 
not steal, thou shalt not even covet thy neighbor's 
goods ; thou shalt be hospitable to the stranger ; 
thou shalt be kind to thy cattle." And by these 
commands be lifted man to a higher plane of being. 
It is very easy for a man living in the nineteenth 
century to point out the mistakes of Moses in mat- 
ters of science. Any school-girl in Boston can cor- 
rect the mistakes of Plato, Bacon, and Shakspeare. 
But Shakspeare, Plato, and Bacon are still great 
lights to us, as they were to their own day. So 



150 EVERY-DAY RELIGION. 

the Bible continues to be our guide and inspira- 
tion in morals and religion, as it has been for three 
thousand years. We can find nothing tenderer than 
the Psalms. In our sorrow and loss we borrow the 
language of David ; in our loftier moods we turn to 
the prophets ; in our bereavement we come to him 
who said, "I will give you rest." In our sins we 
find no one who can bring to us the sense of God's 
pardon as it is given through Jesus Christ. Let the 
mousing critic gnaw at the letter of the Bible ; the 
honest and seeking soul w T ill ever find in it treasures 
of comfort and of light. 

The great utterances born in the highest mo- 
ments of life, born out of the deepest experiences of 
heroes, saints, and martyrs, the lofty moral teach- 
ings which have come from pure souls, — these 
enter into our common life, and lift us up to a 
higher plane of conviction. Why is it that every 
man's standard of right is higher than his conduct, 
higher than his habits of thinking, feeling, and 
acting ? We all have a standard of duty higher 
than anything we have yet attained. How did 
we get it ? It is a divine gift, coming down to us 
from higher life and purer thoughts than our own. 
These cold, pure waters of life flow down from the 
uplands, from the mountains, and refresh the lower 
valleys with their crystal drops. But we all have 
something in us which answers to such words. 
When those high chords are struck, some string 
vibrates in unison in every bosom. Even the com- 



THE RUDDER, ETC., IN MAN 151 

mon crowd in a theatre will instinctively applaud 
every noble, generous sentiment uttered on the 
stage, showing that man never loses his sense of 
what is right and good. 

Man's tendency is to rise. Aspiration belongs to 
human nature. Even Milton's devils had not lost 
their aspiration, their tendency upward. They 
said to each other in hell : — 

" By our proper motion we ascend 
Up to our native heights. Descent and fall 
To us is adverse." 

Man is never satisfied when he is not making 
progress. He tries to seem satisfied, to persuade 
himself that he is satisfied, but he is not. We 
all long to be better than we are, and that is the 
proof that God means to make us better. When 
God made us he made us for himself, and he 
will not allow any of us to fail of accomplishing 
his purpose. 

One more comparison must be made between 
man and the vessel. Even the rudder and compass 
and charts are of no use unless something else is 
added. What is that something- else ? A motive 
power. The vessel spreads its sails to the wind, 
and the wind fills the sails. The sailor cannot 
create the wind ; all he can do is to spread his sail 
to it. He cannot tell beforehand which way the 
wind will blow, but he goes out of the port in 
confidence that the wind will be sent to him. 



152 E VERY-DAY RELIGION. 

There is also a power from above man which 
moves man. We do not move ourselves. We are 
moved by the spirit of God. What is prayer but 
spreading our sails to catch the wind ? Man does 
not create the wind. He does not know whence it 
cometh or whither it goeth. He simply raises his 
sails and is driven by it. 

A religious man is one who believes in a power 
above himself, which can add motive to his life, 
and who therefore spreads his sails to catch that 
divine breeze. When I am sad, I raise the sails of 
prayer to catch a breeze of comfort ; when I am 
weak, I spread the sails of faith to receive the wind 
which shall bear me on ; when I am sinful, I lift 
my sails to welcome the pardoning breath of God's 
love. Amid the sorrows and disappointments of 
time I open my heart to my heavenly friend and 
am comforted. Strange that men should believe 
in the invisible wind, and not in the unseen breath 
of God's love. 

Or, let us change the image, and suppose the 
ship to be, not a sailing vessel, but a great sea- 
going steamer, with a raging, fiery furnace in its 
heart, which beats with steady pulsation day and 
night, like the heart of a man, driving the great 
piston up and d.own, and moving the enormous 
shafts of steel, which turn with steady force the 
great wheels. The ship plunges on through the 
breaking waves, driven by this inward fire. It is 
now not wind which moves it, but fire, 



THE RUDDER, ETC., IN MAN. 153 

The steamer is an advance on the sailing vessel. 
And so the man in whose soul God kindles a fire 
of love, which burns on night and day, and moves 
him against tide and storm, is no doubt an advance 
on the man who can pray indeed occasionally for 
help, but has no constant fire of love in his heart. 
God comes in the inward fire no less than in the 
outward wind. He sends us motives from within 
as from above. We use occasional prayers, but 
God teaches us to pray without ceasing by a con- 
stant life of love to him and his creatures. Then 
we feel God near us all the day. Then we do not 
hoist our sails and take them in again, but we are 
driven forward by the steady, undying love of God 
in our hearts. 

By this I mean that if we are inwardly at peace 
with God, full of his love, and steadfastly doing 
his will, it is not necessary to pray merely as a 
duty, or a form, or a custom. We do not pray to 
God in order to please him, but to be helped and 
blessed. Just as the Sabbath was made for man, 
and not man for the Sabbath, so prayer was made 
for man, and not man for prayer. Prayer is not a 
duty, but a privilege, an opportunity. It is food 
when we are hungry, water when we are thirsty. 
When we are not hungry it is not our duty to eat, 
nor to drink when we have no thirst. Never look 
on prayer as a form which you ought to go through 
with, never as a ceremony by which God is pleased 
and pacified. No, it is the happy talk of a child 



154 EVERY-DAY RELIGION. 

with its mother ; the cry for comfort, and love, and 
help, which, if it be only sincere, God will always an- 
swer. But does God answer the prayer of form ? 

By this illustration of a ship we see in what 
human power consists, and what are its limitations. 
The sailor has no power over the vessel to make it 
different from what it is ; he has no power over the 
currents or the winds to make them different from 
what they are ; he has no power over the geography 
of land or sea to make it different. But he can 
study his chart to find out how to sail, he can steer 
his vessel by his compass according to its course, 
he can set his sails to the wind ; and if he does all 
this aright, he is able, by obeying law, to become 
free. He is free to accomplish his work only as 
he continues to obey divine law. 

ISTor has man any power over his organization 
of mind or of body to make them different from 
what they are ; no power over the circumstances 
in which he is placed. But he can obey the laws 
of God, or disobey them ; he can seek for truth, or 
neglect it. Happy is he who is steering somewhere, 
who is not drifting purposeless through life. The 
most unhappy of men are those who have nothing 
to do. 

Happier he whose purpose is a good and generous 
one ; who lives in order to find more truth, do more 
good, accomplish something of real value in the 
world. Happiest of all he who is doing this with the 
consciousness that he is a fellow-worker with God, 



THE RUDDER, ETC., IN MAN. 155 

who is working with the love of God and Christ 
in his heart, and so making this earthly life at one 
with the life in heaven. He only can pray the 
Lord's prayer with full conviction, and say, " Thy 
kingdom come, thy will be done on earth, as it is 
done in heaven." He knows what is the object of 
his voyage ; he has the chart of his Master's life by 
which to steer, the unvarying compass of conscience 
as his daily guide, and the spirit of God, the divine 
breath of love, to urge him forward. 

Over ten thousand miles of pathless ocean 

The ship moves on its steadfast course each day, 

Through tropic calms, or seas in wild commotion, 
And anchors safe within the expected bay. 

O ship of God ! with voyage more sublime — 
O human soul ! in thine appointed hour, 

Launched from eternity on seas of time, 

In calms more fatal, storms of madder power — 

Sail on ! and trust the compass in thy breast, 
Trust the diviner heavens that round thee bend, 

And, steering for the port of perfect rest, 
Trust, most of all, in thine Eternal Friend. 



XI. 
MOKAL MISALLIANCES. 



XI. 

MORAL MISALLIANCES. 



" The thistle in Lebanon sent to the cedar in Lebanon, 
saying, Give thy daughter to my son for a wife. 1 ' 

THIS is one of the earliest instances of what 
we call a fable. Fables, like proverbs, are 
the exponents of a popular wisdom. The good 
sense of a nation and age sums itself up in such 
a little parable as this. It is meant to show the 
disadvantages of a misalliance. It has the same 
moral as the fable of iEsop concerning the collier 
who asked the fuller to come and live with him. 
Inconsistent unions and- their evils are objected 
to here. 

In nature, however, there cannot be any such 
inconsistent unions. The thistle and cedar never 
marry. Tribes, orders, genera, species, are preserved 
from intermingling by some fixed law. We do not 
exactly know what a species is, but we know at 
least this, that there are boundaries in the animal 
and vegetable kingdoms which cannot now be over- 



160 E VERY-DAY RELIGION. 

passed. This law keeps races distinct, and prevents 
intermixture. There are no hybrid races. If there 
were, the whole organized world would be a scene 
of confusion. The peach tree and almond breed 
together, but are held therefore to be of the same 
species, the peach, being only a variety of the al- 
mond. " If the peach were, indeed, a distinct species, 
where was it concealed," says Pritchard, " from the 
creation until the reign of Claudius Caesar ? " 

The old botanists arranged plants according to 
an artificial order, founded on one or two features 
of their organization, making a very cumbrous 
system, hard to understand and difficult to remem- 
ber. The modern botanists have a natural method 
of arrangement, by which plants come together that 
are really alike ; not those which resemble each 
other only in such a number of stamens and pistils. 
Society in America has the advantage over society 
in Europe that it follows the natural order of 
arrangement. The system of elective affinities pre- 
vails so powerfully that no caste system can suc- 
ceed here. It may be attempted in such great cities 
as New York and Philadelphia, but the whole stress 
of things is against it. 

Nature forbids misalliances by establishing the 
boundary of specific differences between different 
tribes ot animals and plants. Thus we have vari- 
ety, but not confusion, in the world ; thousands of 
animals, thousands of plants, keeping themselves 
distinct, capable of being improved, but remaining 



MORAL MISALLIANCES. 161 

essentially the same, — the violet always a violet, 
the bee just such an insect now, with the same 
habits and instincts, as when Samson propounded 
his riddle to the Philistines. If the vegetable and 
animal kingdoms had been constituted differently, 
the result would have been worse. We should 
have had confusion instead of harmony. We must 
must have varieties first, then we can have union. 
"All Nature's difference makes all Nature's peace." 

Social man has attempted to imitate these ar- 
rangements of nature by means of a system of caste. 
This has been carried to the greatest extreme in 
India. Gangooly tells us there are thirty-four 
castes in India, and no id an can get out of his 
caste by any effort. A weaver can no more change 
into a barber or shoemaker than a dog can change 
into an elephant, or an apple tree into a maple. 

The same distinction of castes appears in western 
society. There are high and low castes, Brahmins 
and Sudras, in Europe. These distinctions are 
more marked and regarded with more favor in 
England than elsewhere. Tennyson's beautiful 
poem of "The Lord of Burleigh" is founded on- the 
fact of a misalliance in one of the great English 
houses, and the moral of the poem seems to be the 
danger and impropriety of such marriages. Their 
penalty, according to the poet, is death. It is a 
capital offence in England, according to Tennyson, 
to marry above your rank. 

11 



162 E VERY-DAY RELIGION. 

" For a trouble weighed upon her, 

And perplexed her night and morn 
With the burden of an honor 
Unto which she was not born." 

In marriage, however, there is but one real mis- 
alliance. Two people can be happy and good in 
marriage who differ in a thousand ways ; who be- 
long to different races, nations, civilizations ; who 
belong to different classes, circles, castes ; who 
differ in taste, talent, culture. They can be happy 
notwithstanding these differences, and often because 
of them. The differences attract and interest each 
the other, as the positive and negative poles of the 
magnet attract each other. So the poet says : — 

" Are not we formed, as notes of music are, 
For one another, though dissimilar ? 
Such difference, without discord, as can make 
The sweetest sounds 1 " 

But the real misalliance in marriage is when the 
aims are different, when the fundamental, practical 
convictions are different ; when the husband and 
wife differ radically as to what they wish to do and 
be. If one wishes to make a show, and the other 
wishes to do something real ; if one aims at appear- 
ance, and the other at reality ; if one cares only for 
pleasure, and the other for work ; if the one wishes 
to lead a religious life, and the other a worldly life, — 
then, to be sure, they may walk together side by 
side through the world, but it is no real marriage 
of heart or life, no real communion of spirit, no 



MORAL MISALLIANCES. 163 

companionship of soul. They are not helpmeets in 
any real sense. It is the marriage of the cedar and 
thistle. And the only cure for this evil is such a 
real love as shall bring their aims together, as shall 
enable one to enter into the convictions and objects 
of the other, till they grow at last into one spirit 
and purpose. 

But there are other misalliances as inconsistent 
as the marriage of the cedar and thistle. There are 
moral misalliances which we may consider. 

One of these is the compromise betweeu right and 
wrong ; the attempt to marry justice and injustice, 
humanity and cruelty, truths and lies. We have 
had a great deal of it in this country, and have suf- 
fered in consequence. Now a compromise itself is 
not wrong, when no principle is involved. It is, in 
fact, the element of all practice. We could not do 
anything without compromises. In common life 
we always have to split the difference, to give up 
something we want in order to get something else. 
Two persons could not live together a day without 
mutual compromises. So in politics, compromises 
are necessary. If you want to carry an election, 
you must unite a multitude holding a great variety 
of opinions, and each must give up something he 
would like to have ; each must be willing to wait, 
and postpone his wish, and realize only a part of it 
now, hoping to have more hereafter. The most im- 
practicable radical, who has denounced compromises 
all his life, the moment he begins to act begins to 



164 E VERY-DAY RELIGION. 

make compromises ; and it is right and proper to 
do so. There is nothing wrong in it when he only 
gives up his own interests. The evil is in giving 
up principle, giving up justice, giving up honor 
and truth. That we did formerly, in the old com- 
promises between freedom and slavery ; for in those 
we did not surrender our own interests merely, but 
the rights of others. 

Everything which men seek after in this world 
has its price marked upon it. If you wish it, pay 
the just price for it, but do not expect to acquire 
it without. Many of the failures, defalcations, and 
disasters of the business world to-day, which dis- 
courage enterprise and leave labor unemployed, 
come from the habits of speculation which always 
attend and follow a great war. A few years since 
half the world was trying to become rich, not by in- 
dustry and economy in one's own regular business, 
but by speculation. But the man who speculates 
is a gambler, and a gambler is one who wishes to 
make money without paying the price ; to accumu- 
late by luck, not by industry. To marry commerce 
to speculation is a misalliance which leads to no 
good. It has plunged the nation into untold suffer- 
ing and disaster. 

Another misalliance is that of inconsistent expec- 
tations. In the outward world we do not hope to 
gather grapes from thorns or figs from thistles, but 
in social life we perpetually make this mistake. 
In selecting the agent of a corporation, a town 



MORAL MISALLIANCES. 165 

treasurer, the cashier of a bank, or in filling other 
offices requiring ability and involving responsibil- 
ity, we often select a man because he is smart, not 
because he is honest. After a while, if he yields to 
temptation and runs away with the funds, we are 
much surprised. We had been hoping evidently to 
gather grapes from thorns. A Massachusetts dis- 
trict sends a man to Congress whom all men know 
to have very little pretence to high principle ; one, 
perhaps, who ridicules conscience as though it were 
cant. He is sent because he can say sharp things 
against the opposite party. Then the voters are 
amazed when for some personal reason he votes 
against their interests. They wanted a thistle, but 
they expected it to be a thistle for their enemies 
and a fig-tree for themselves. 

There are few persons who like to be bad ; who 
deliberately propose to themselves a life of dishon- 
esty, meanness, falsehood, selfishness, and sin. ISTo, 
most men mean to be generous, noble, and true, but 
they are not ready to pay the price. They wish for 
the satisfactions which come from wrong-doing and 
those of right-doing at the same time, or else to get 
enough out of selfishness to-day to be able to be 
generous to-morrow. They will be mean now and 
noble by and by. They will be idle, careless, self- 
indulgent now, and become industrious and tem- 
perate hereafter. But no such alliance is possible. 
You cannot go in opposite directions. Each step in 
wrong takes you so much farther from right, makes 



166 EVERY-DAY RELIGION. 

it just so much more difficult to return. You are 
forming habits which become stronger every day 
and every hour. If you wish to be wise, pure, gen- 
erous, when you are old, you must begin to be so 
when you are young. 

Men who enter public life should understand that 
they will often be obliged to choose between their 
interest and their duty, between the public service 
and their private advancement. The union of the 
two is a misalliance; the attempt to unite them 
will be a failure. If they will devote themselves to 
the public good, leaving their own fame, fortune, 
success, to take care of itself, if they only seek to 
do what is right and wise, then they will have an 
easy and a straightforward path. Their work will 
simplify itself wonderfully. But if they are keep- 
ing an eye also to their own position and fortune, 
and are seeking to advance these, they will become 
like so many of our public men, narrowing their 
minds to little local questions of party success; 
voting for anything they think is popular, whether 
it is right or wrong ; seeking to win the suffrage of 
the ignorant by pandering to their prejudices ; ad- 
vocating inflation to-day and contraction to-morrow, 
as one or the other seems likely to prevail ; putting 
grand principles into their platform, and bitterly de- 
nouncing those who honestly try to carry them out. 
These are thy gods, O Israel ! mere weathercocks, 
turned about by the last breath of the crowd ! 

There are other alliances, however, which are 



MORAL MISALLIANCES. 167 

thought to be misalliances, and are not so ; princi- 
ples which are supposed to be at war, but which 
really make the strongest union. 

Reason and religion form a noble alliance with 
each other. Eeligion is trust in God, obedience to 
God springing out of love for God. Reason is the 
exercise of the noblest power he has given us in the 
search for his truth. When these are united, what 
a grand union ! The marriage of truth and love 
is the symbol of the highest alliance of all, from 
which are born the fairest blessings of earth. The 
children of this marriage are knowledge, beauty, 
goodness, use. Religion divorced from reason be- 
comes superstition. Reason divorced from religion 
gives us only doctrines of despair. Together they 
create a new heaven and earth of peace, love, and 
progress. 

In these days we hear much of the war between 
science and religion. There can be no war between 
true science aud true religion. Science is knowl- 
edge ; religion, as defined by Jesus, is love. Knowl- 
edge and love cannot be at war with each other, 
for both are powers planted in the soul by the 
Almighty. 

The division of labor, made necessary by the 
abundance of work to be done in modern life, has 
placed men of science in one department and men 
of religion in another. Scientific men have little 
time to devote to religion ; religious men little time 
to study science. But this is unfortunate, since 



168 E VERY-DAY RELIGION. 

it suggests that these two departments of life are 
hostile. When we find great scientists, like Newton, 
Peirce, Agassiz, reverencing divine truth, and re- 
ligious men, like Kingsley, Jacobi, and Schleier- 
macher studying science, we discover how much 
higher this union can carry one than either pursuit 
by itself. 

I once heard a speaker announce as her opinion 
that whereas hitherto religion had been thought to 
be the love of God, henceforth religion would be the 
love of man. In this one-sided statement it was 
assumed that the two were foreign and opposed, 
instead of being mutually helpful and necessary 
to each other. This speaker was as narrow in her 
theory as the theologians who make the love of God 
without the love of man the only duty. The two 
loves are not to be divided. You can possess no 
divine love without human love, no human love 
apart from divine. Eeformers should understand 
that no stable reform is accomplished by going from 
one extreme to the other. The pendulum will 
always swing back again to the other side. The 
son of a stiff conservative will probably be a radical 
reformer, and the daughter of this radical reformer 
will very likely join the Eoman Catholic Church. 
That is apt to be the result of ultraism. 

One moral misalliance is the attempt in religion 
to marry the letter which killeth and the spirit 
which giveth life. Christianity is a spiritual re- 
ligion. Its worship is universal; not at Gerizim, 



MORAL MISALLIANCES. 169 

nor Jerusalem, but everywhere, so that it be in 
spirit and truth. Neither Jesus nor his apostles 
instituted any fixed forms or any fixed creed. They 
left men's minds free to think oat. each for himself, 
his opinions ; and they left the Church free to find 
such forms as should suit it, and be useful. But 
even in Paul's time mauy Christians regretted los- 
ing the magnificent Jewish worship, and longed for 
some great and solemn ceremonies. So, by degrees, 
came in the pomps of Catholicism. And even 
in the Protestant Church there is a constant ten- 
dency to make forms of worship essential, — ends 
instead of means. Baptism, the Lord's Supper, the 
quiet of the Lord's Day, the worship of the church, 
— these are all good and useful when they bring 
us near to God and inspire us with love for him. 
When we baptize little children it is a good thing, 
if we do it as a sign of the tenderness of God to 
these little ones, and to suggest that we must be 
innocent as they are to enter the kingdom of heaven. 
But if we think it is somehow necessary for their 
salvation, or that they are safer for being baptized, 
then we marry God's sublime truth to a low super- 
stition. It is a good thing to come together in 
memory of Christ, and to take bread and wine to- 
gether, if we do it to remind ourselves that the 
highest communion is that of faith and love. If 
we sit together in heavenly places, so that earthly 
distinctions may disappear, and we become an army 
of the living God, communing with all the good in all 



170 E VERY-DAY RELIGION. 

lands and times, — that elevates us and purifies us. 
But if we suppose that there is any superior sacred- 
ness in the bread and wine in themselves, or any 
virtue in the mere act of partaking them, then we 
marry the love of our Master to an outworn pagan- 
ism. Let us go forward, and not backward ; forward 
into deeper life, into a nobler religion, into larger 
freedom, into manlier piety, forgetting the things 
behind and reaching out to the things before. In 
pagan lands people wear amulets on their breast, 
and trust to them for safety. Let us beware lest we 
make such amulets out of any Christian sacraments 
or out of any Christian beliefs. 

Another moral misalliance is of the love of God 
with the fear of God. All Christians admit and 
believe that true religion consists in the love of 
God. But many also think that men ought to be 
brought to God by terror. So they represent the 
Almighty as full of wrath, and describe him as 
angry, jealous, and ready to seize an occasion to 
plunge his children into a fiery torment. But we 
cannot hold in our mind these two conceptions, — a 
God of love and a God of wrath. Such notions can- 
not be married. One must give way to the other. 
While we love God we cannot be afraid of him ; 
while we are afraid of him we cannot love him. It 
is right to be afraid, but not of God. Be afraid of 
yourself, be afraid of sin, be afraid of the conse- 
quences of sin, here and hereafter, but never be 
afraid of God. 



MORAL MISALLIANCES. 171 

Again, we unite the cedar and the thistle when- 
ever we confound moral distinctions in conduct and 
life, whenever we attempt to justify wrong or ex- 
cuse it, whenever we marry high principles and low 
conduct. Then we confuse and debase our lives. 
I sometimes think it better not to have a lofty 
standard, than to have it and be false to it. The 
sin against the Holy Ghost is to defy and resist the 
truth which we have clearly seen. 

Beware of these moral misalliances. Do not 
allow yourselves, having adopted principles of duty 
and right, to be faithless to them. Do not consent 
to be drawn down to a lower plane of conduct. 
Keep to your standard. In our State House, among 
the battle-flags which hang in its lower hall, flags 
torn and smoked and burnt on many a bloody field, 
flags which no one can look at without a sense of 
pity and pride, there is one staff from which its 
banner was wholly torn away, and which stands 
there a naked pole. It was carried into the blazing 
tumult of Fort Wagner on that memorable night 
when the colored soldiers from Massachusetts re- 
ceived their baptism of blood, and lifted their whole 
race out of contempt to the level of men. The 
bearer of the flag was wounded and fell, but crawled 
out of the fray, hugging his staff to his breast, 
saying, " It did not touch the ground ! " Let us 
cling to our standard of right ; cling to whatever 
remains of it ; cling to the smallest shred of duty ; 
be faithful in the least, as this hero was faithful. 



172 EVERY-DAY RELIGION. 

Let not our standard of duty ever touch the ground. 
It is so easy to give up our principles ; so hard to 
stand by them. It is so hard to remember the 
dreams of our youth, so hard to fight the good fight, 
day by day, year by year. But we lose all if we 
willingly yield anything, or if we yield at the last. 
"What avails it to have stood by the flag through the 
roar of a loner battle, if we surrender at the end ? 
Let the cedar stand alone, firm and tall, on its moun- 
tain height, and condescend to no base alliance with 
low, false, sinful evil. 

Hold fast, therefore, the confidence and the re- 
joicing of hope, firm unto the end. " Be not weary 
of well-doing, for in due season we shall reap if we 
faint not." The Eoman poet said: "Do not, then, 
yield to evil, but rather go on more bravely in the 
midst of evil." What is good becomes better when 
we have to fight for it ; truth is nobler and dearer 
which is earned by toil and sacrifice. " Count it all 
joy," says the Apostle, " that ye fall into divers 
temptations" and trials. Oat of these conies a 
deeper experience, a manlier patience, a surer hope, 
a more intense conviction. For God loves those 
wmom he chastens, and it is a sign of his confidence 
in us when he lays burdens on us. These bur- 
dens are the means by which we gain new strength, 
power, success. 






XII. 

MEN'S SINS GOING BEFORE AND 
AFTER THEM. 



XII. 

MEN'S SINS GOING BEFORE AND AFTER 
THEM. 



" Some men's sins are open beforehand, going before to 
judgment ; and some men they follow after." 

IT is not often that you find united in the same 
mind the keen penetration which can distin- 
guish finely between unapparent differences, and 
the large grasp of thought which can ascend to the 
universal laws of being. But the intellect of the 
Apostle Paul possessed both of these mental quali- 
ties. We find in his writings the sharpest distinc- 
tions joined with the broadest generalizations. The 
above passage from his first letter to Timothy is an 
instance of his power of delicate analysis. He here 
describes two kinds of human characters in a very 
subtle way, 

" There are sins of two kinds," says the Apostle, 
" and virtues of two kinds ; recognize them both." 
Some men's sins are open, patent to all; vices of 
6clat, bringing down swift and present retribution. 
These sins all see. They go before men to judg- 



176 E VERY-DAY RELIGION. 

ment. The man's sins precede him ; we see them 
before we see him. We read them in his face, 
hear them in his voice, recognize them in his whole 
being. The judgment of those sins is falling upon 
them almost before he can commit them. He is a 
careless man ; he is reckless ; he is passionate ; he 
is self-indulgent ; he is conceited ; he is lazy. His 
character in all such particulars announces itself 
from afar. Poor fellow ! We know that he is guilty 
of such faults before we hear of them. They go 
before him to judgment. 

As the band of music precedes the military com- 
pany, announcing its approach, so this sounding 
troop of follies marches before the man, causing him 
to be judged, to be censured, to be disliked, to be 
shunned by his fellow-men. 

But other men's sins are latent, following after 
them. They are not the vices of eclat, but more 
subtle and interior, consuming slowly the centre of 
their being. In their case the judgment is deferred, 
not speedily executed, and they deem they have 
escaped the penalty. Thus there are two sorts 
of hidden lives, — the life of goodness, " hid with 
Christ in God ; " the life of evil, hid with Satan in 
hell. But there is nothing covered, good or bad, 
which shall not be revealed, nor anything hid which 
shall not be known. The evil which follows after 
us will overtake us at last if we do not repent of 
it and forsake it. The good which follows after us 
will bless us with its presence and glory. 



SINS GOING BEFORE AND AFTER. 177 

The story of the Pharisee and Publican gives 
us an example of the two kinds of evil. The sins 
of the Publican went before him, apparent to all. 
He belonged to a class whose temptations to injus- 
tice were great. It had the power of oppressing 
men by its extortions, of grinding the face of the 
poor, of cheating the treasury for its own benefit. 
These sins marched before these men, and the best 
of them were believed to be guilty of such extor- 
tion and dishonesty. They had the credit of all the 
wrong they did, and more. They were condemned, 
as a class, to infamy and dishonor. If they tried 
to do right, to be just and honest, no one would 
believe it of them. Their evil was seen, their good- 
ness hidden. 

Of the Pharisee the opposite was true. His 
virtues went before him, in full sight. He was 
what we should now call " a professor of religion," 
— a poor term, which ought to be banished from 
the church dictionary. Every one saw his fasts, 
heard his prayers, beheld his large contributions to 
the treasury of the Temple. His vices were less 
apparent ; they were egotism, spiritual pride, want 
of charity, of humility, and of the love of truth. 
He was like the tree, fair outwardly, but rotten 
within, ready to fall with the first strong wind. 

Within the past few years we have had many ex- 
amples of men who stood fair before the community, 
while they were secretly doing wrong. Presidents 
and treasurers of manufacturing corporations and 

12 



178 EVERY-DAY RELIGION. 

religious missionary associations ; town treasurers ; 
bank tellers and cashiers ; trustees of the property 
of widows and orphans, are found to have used 
trust money for private speculations. Usually they 
have begun this course of evil long before they 
were found out. During these years they have 
been respected in the community, perhaps have 
. been teachers in Sunday schools, have given largely 
to missions, have stood up and exhorted in prayer- 
meetings. Meantime their sin has been following 
steadily after them. Made bold by impunity, they 
have grown careless, audacious, reckless. At last 
the sin overtakes them ; the day of detection ar- 
rives. The community learns with astonishment 
that this man, so much trusted and honored, has 
been for years a thief, stealing the property of 
others, with which to gamble in stocks. Some of 
these men are now in our prisons ; some have com- 
mitted suicide ; some have fled in disgrace. All 
have brought misery on themselves and their fami- 
lies and friends. 

Probably there are now among us others of the 
same sort ; those whose sins are steadily pursuing 
them, sure to overtake them by and by. What a 
dreadful state of mind such a man must be in! 
He is obliged to appear cheerful while inwardly 
consumed by anxiety, afraid of detection and dis- 
covery at every moment. 

In one of Scott's novels there is an account of 
a party of fugitives escaping from their enemies, 



SINS GOING BEFORE AND AFTER. 179 

making their way in darkness by secret paths in 
the mountains, and hearing behind them the deep 
bay of the bloodhound on their track, constantly 
following their footsteps. So is the man whose sin 
is following after him. 

On one of the post-office routes of the United 
States money had been frequently lost. A detec- 
tive was sent by the department to find the culprit. 
For a long time he quietly pursued his inquiries. 
He travelled to and fro along the route, put pack- 
ages into the mail between different offices, dropped 
letters here and there containing marked bills. At 
last he discovered the office where the letters were 
intercepted. The postmaster was a very respectable 
man, married to a good wife, with two sweet little 
children. He kept a shop as well as the post-office. 
When the agent went in, he was weighing out 
goods to a customer. The detective said, " Can I 
see you in private for a moment ? " The man's face 
turned ghastly pale. He knew that his sin had 
found him out. In a moment, fell in ruin his char- 
acter, the respect and love of others, his peace and 
fortune, — all that makes life worth living. His sin 
had followed after him steadily during many years, 
and now it had come up with him. Oh, what a fool 
he had been ! For the sinner always sees at last 
that he is also a fool. 

In the irresistible loojic of euilt, one evil leads to 
another, one sin is developed out of another. There 
is nothing abrupt, nothing casual in the process. 



180 E VERY-DAY RELIGION. 

The road to sin is smooth, because an army of trans- 
gressions has passed over it. When such a devel- 
opment takes place,, the community is filled with 
consternation. Men meet each other and say, "Have 
you heard what has happened ? Mr. A. has turned 
out a defaulter. Mr. B. has been robbing his bank. 
How could he have done it ? " Alas ! he did it 
long ago, when he took the first step, when he di- 
verged a very little way from the path of right. 
After that, every other step was easy, natural, and 
logical. 

But while you condemn the man, pity him. 
Think of his misery during all these years. He 
knows that his sin is following after him ; knows 
that it will one day find him out. Meantime he 
lives in perpetual fear ; a nameless dread hangs over 
him at everv moment. Certainlv sin is the greatest 
of follies. Such a man di^s a mine under his house, 
fills it with gunpowder, makes a train from it to 
the railroad where the hot sparks are falling, and 
then places himself over the mine, waiting for the 
explosion. 

Likewise the good works of some persons are 
manifest beforehand. There is a goodness which is 
gracious, and everywhere beloved ; a goodness which 
hurts no one's prejudices, interferes with no one's 
opinions. Some persons are born with good tem- 
pers, sweet dispositions, lovely manners. They 
make sunshine wherever they come. They are like 
Guido's Apollo, preceded and attended by the beau- 



SINS GOING BEFORE AND AFTER. 181 

tiful Hours. A band of graces goes before them ; 
soft music heralds their approach. These are the 
saints whom all admire ; the saints of society ; the 
heroes of the winning cause. It is easy for them 
to be good-natured, sympathetic, kind, for they are 
made so. We will be thankful for this sort of good- 
ness, for it makes life fair, and these lessons of kind- 
liness are known and read of all men. They are our 
alphabet of virtue, easily learned. The sun, I sup- 
pose, finds no difficulty in shining ; he cannot help 
being radiant ; and these fair souls find no difficulty 
in saying and doing kind things. They radiate 
sunshine naturally. 

But some men have a good inward purpose, sur- 
rounded by a harsh, ungraceful, egotistical, comba- 
tive, or disagreeable manner. They try to be kind ; 
they only succeed in being patronizing. They 
struggle to please ; they displease by the very 
effort. They come to see you, desiring to make 
themselves agreeable. In five minutes they have 
engaged you in a sharp dispute. They are some- 
times so diffident that they seem proud. They 
would give the world to be loved, and they appear 
indifferent. They go through life sad and gloomy, 
walking always on the shady side of the street, and 
so men call them sullen. I confess in reading- 
Dante I have felt a pity for his poor sullen people, 
whom he thought fit to immerse in the mud of 
hell, and whose words came bubbling up through 
the slime, saying, "Sullen were we in the sweet 



182 E VERY-DAY RELIGION. 

air that is gladdened by the sun, carrying lazy 
smoke in our hearts; now lie we sullen here in 
the black mire." Poor souls ! they perhaps did 
not wish to be sullen ; they could not help them- 
selves. I do not think that the Almighty Judge 
will confirm Dante's hard sentence. I like Burns's 
view better: — 

"Who knows the heart, 'tis He alone 

Decidedly can try us ; 
He knows each chord, its separate tone ; 

Each spring, its various bias. 
Then at the balance let 's be mute; 

We never can adjust it ; 
What 's done we partly may compute, 

But know not what 's resisted." 

Old Dr. Beecher was an instance of one whose 
good works followed him. In him we saw a man 
brought up to believe with undoubting faith that 
men can be saved only by orthodox opinions. 
Earnestly desirous of doing good, bent on finishing 
the work he had to do, he was yet from this nar- 
rowness unable to do justice to an opponent. Be- 
fore him marched in full view his bigotry, his 
bitterness against heretics, and his superstitious 
fear of an avenging God. But his good works fol- 
lowed after, — his practical labors for temperance, 
for education, for human improvement, his desire 
to revive vital religion in human hearts ; and so at 
last, when he came to be old, he had the happiness 
of seeing himself surrounded by troops of friends 



SINS GOING BEFORE AND AFTER. 183 

and a wonderful family of children. I think his 
children must have astonished him sometimes. I 
think he could not ever quite understand such he- 
retical utterances as those which we find, for exam- 
ple, in some of Mrs. Stowe's novels. But thus he 
was taught tolerance and charity in his old age, 
and his good works followed him to the grave and 
accompanied him into heaven. 

Not what we seem, therefore, but what we are, is 
the important thing. Not the outward life, but the 
inward life, is our real being. And this inward real 
life is that which, following always behind us, will 
one day overtake us ; which one day is to be seen 
and known of all men. For there is nothing cov- 
ered which shall not be revealed, nothing hidden 
which shall not be known. 

It has been taught in the Christian church that 
there is to be a day of judgment, when all the world 
will appear before God to be judged. Then the 
sheep will go on the right hand and the goats on 
the left. Then we shall give an account of all the 
deeds done in the body, whether they be good or 
whether they be evil. Each man will be judged 
and sentenced in the presence of the collected 
universe. 

But this is too prosaic and literal. The true 
judgment day is always at hand. " The hour Com- 
eth, and now is" said Jesus, " when all that are 
in their graves shall hear the voice of the Son of 
Man, and come forth." The day of judgment is the 



184 EVERY-DAY RELIGION. ' 

perpetual revelation of truth. The best definition of 
it was once given by a boy, deaf and dumb, whose 
inward eye was opened while his outward senses 
were closed. "The judgment day," said he, "is to 
see ourselves as we are, and to see God as he is." 
It is first an inward judgment, — a judgment on 
ourselves, — and then that which is within coming 
to the light. 

" If we judge ourselves," says the Apostle, " we 
shall not be judged." The important fact is to 
know ourselves, and not to deceive ourselves. The 
important fact is to have inward truth, to love 
what is real, to seek to know what we are — really 
are — in the sight, not of men, but of God. When 
we do this, we judge ourselves, and need no out- 
ward judgment. 

Every one has a hidden life as well as an open 
life. There is that in each of us which no one 
can ever fully understand. People complain that 
they are " not understood." Who is ever under- 
stood ? They seek " to define their position." It is 
an idle attempt. Let us leave it to time and to 
God to define our position. He will make every- 
thing plain at last. 

David was grieved because she saw the w 7 icked 
man in power, and flourishing like a green bay-tree. 
But he went by, and lo ! he was gone, and his place 
knew him no more. 

We feel vexed because bad men succeed in get- 
ting place and power. The charlatan is followed by 



SINS GOING BEFORE AND AFTER. 185 

crowds ; the demagogue gets chosen to office. We 
have seen some very mean men elected to the 
highest offices in the United States. We have seen 
some very noble men fail of public recognition. 
But in the end justice rises up, and weighs them 
both in her impartial scales. Men in office or out 
of office remain exactly what they were before. 
Wherever the great man sits is the head of the 
table. Wherever the mean man sits will be the 
foot of the table. 

In Boston stands the statue of Josiah Quincy. 
He was never a very popular man, — he was too 
manly, too independent to be popular. Wherever 
he was, he was upright and honorable, open and 
manly. As Mayor of Boston, he displeased many 
persons by his independent course, and so failed at 
last of a re-election. I heard him give a farewell 
address to the citizens in the Old South Church. 
He quoted — and he had a right to quote and ap- 
ply to himself — the words of the Prophet Samuel 
when about to resign his position as ruler of 
Israel : " ' Here I stand ; witness against me to- 
day. Whose ox have I taken ? or whose ass have I 
taken ? Whom have I defrauded ? Whom have 
I oppressed ? At whose hands have I received a 
bribe to blind mine eyes therewith ? ' And they 
said, 'Thou hast not defrauded us, nor oppressed 
us, nor taken aught of any man.' " And now, after 
many years, the good works of Josiah Quincy have 
overtaken him, and he is recognized as one of those 



186 E VERY-DAY RELIGION. 

figures who must have a statue, though they do not 
need a statue, because they are themselves statues, — 
permanent illustrations of what is just, honorable, 
and true. * 

Close beside that image of Eoman courage and 
independence stands the statue of Franklin, a man 
also much misunderstood in his own time. He was 
insulted hour after hour in the presence of amused 
English noblemen, by an abusive Attorney-General ; 
he was misrepresented and maligned by his Vir- 
ginia colleague in France while devoting himself 
to the service of his country. But, as Monadnock 
or the Matterhorn may be covered to the summit 
with creeping mists, but is at last sure to come out 
again, a great altar of God for adoration, a kingly 
spirit throned among the hills, a dread ambassador 
from earth to heaven, so these great souls emerge 
from slander and abuse, and are known at last as 
the lights of their age and the honor of their land. 

The truths here stated are very serious, both as 
warning and encouragement. To be tracked and 
followed by one's sins is a very serious thing ; to 
be followed by what is good in us is encouraging. 
Both facts show us the grandeur of the soul, the 
value of life, and the importance of what we do and 
are. If all things come to the light, if our acts 
come to judgment, it is because God values them, 
and counts every incident and adventure of our 
life as important to the universe. Thus, as the 
Apostle says, " we are a spectacle to men and 



SINS GOING BEFORE AND AFTER. 187 

angels." By seeing and knowing the evil there is 
in us, we are to be cured of it. 

Herein we see that what appears evil can become 
the means of greater ultimate good. Herein we see 
the infinite love of the Father penetrating into the 
griefs, woes, and wrongs of life. Thus shall an- 
guish and remorse prepare the way for blessings. 
Thus shall the dark background of human de- 
pravity be transfigured and transformed by the di- 
vine radiance of truth. Thus shall men be brought 
to repentance and life, and at last every knee bow 
to the divine truth, and God become the all in all. 



XIII. 

EVERY "NOW" THE DAY OF 
SALVATION. 



XIII. 

EVERY "NOW" THE DAY OF SALVATION. 



I SUPPOSE we have all heard earnest sermons 
preached, the object of which was to prove the 
importance of the particular "now" in which we 
then chanced to be. "It is the end of the year," 
said the preacher; "perhaps we shall never see 
another year. Now is the only time we have for 
repentance." Or perhaps he said, "You are now 
serious ; you noiv feel the importance of a religious 
life ; this may be the last time God may move your 
heart. Begin, therefore, to obey and love him now." 
Or he may have said, if he were a revival preacher, 
" This season of religious awakening is possibly 
your only opportunity. Use it now." It was this 
particular now which was the day of salvation. 

But let us go further, and consider a larger doc- 
trine concerning "the now." Not any particular 
"now," but all "nows," are days of salvation. Every 
now ; now everywhere ; now always, is the impor- 
tant moment, All that is interesting and vital is 
concentrated in the present hour. Not by dwelling 



192 E VERY-DAY RELIGION. 

on the past, not by living in the future, but by bring- 
ing the past and the future into the present, do we 
accomplish anything real, gain any true satisfaction. 

Religious people formerly believed that it was 
their duty to desert the present life and dwell in 
meditation on the world to come. This was carried 
furthest by the monks and anchorites of former 
days. But even yet the same state of mind is 
sometimes taught as a duty. We are told to fix our 
mind on the future life ; to consider our last end ; 
to meditate on immortality and heaven and the 
world to come. No doubt it is interesting to spec- 
ulate on the nature of a future state ; but I doubt 
if there is much religious profit therein. I do not 
think it was intended that we should think much 
about death or the hereafter while we are here. 
God has separated the future life from this by an 
impenetrable veil, to show that he means us, while 
we are here, to think of this world, not of that one. 
All our duties are here and now. We are to be 
interested in these, not in what is to come by and 
by. To try to meditate on a world of which we 
can know scarcely anything cannot be a duty. It 
leaves the mind empty. It is evident that God 
does not mean to have us think much about the 
other world while we are in this one. It would 
take off our attention too much from present in- 
terests and duties. 

More than that, we do not enter immortality by 
thinking of a future life, but by communing with 






EVERY "NOW" THE DAY OF SALVATION. 193 

God and infinite realities now. "Immortality," 
says Dr. Charming, " must begin here." He here. 
expresses the same thought which Jesus declared 
in those memorable words to Martha, — so often 
repeated, so seldom understood, — "I am resurrec- 
tion and life." Martha thought resurrection was 
some future event. " I know," said she, " that my 
brother will rise again in the resurrection at the 
last day." " I am resurrection and life," replied the 
Master ; " he who believes in me," — he who has 
my faith, he who sees God's truth and love as I see 
it, — "though he were dead, yet shall he live." He 
who has this faith does not die. Death is nothing 
to him. He is so full of life that death becomes a 
fact of little consequence, not worth occupying his 
attention. He believes he must live on, not because 
of any argument, but because he has immortal life 
abiding in him. A soul full of divine life, living 
from God for man, giving itself to great duties for 
this world and for humanity, has not time to think 
of death, and has no occasion to think of it. It is 
immortal already. It has already passed the gate 
of death. The death of the soul is the only death we 
need fear. If our soul has become alive by faith, 
love, and goodness, we have immortality now. 

God himself is the perpetual now. When he 
gave his name to Moses, he said, " I am the I Am." 
Only when we live in the present do we commune 
with him, the ever-present God, the eternal Now. 
Even the heathen had a sight of this truth. On 

13 



194 EVERY-DAY RELIGION. 

the temple at Deijjhi was engraven the two Greek 
letters " epsilon " and " iota," meaning " Thou Art." 
It was the response of natural religion to the re- 
ligion reA 7 ealecl in the soul. The poor insane poet, 
Christopher Smart, is said to Lave written while in 
the asylum that striking hymn which is, so far as 
I know, the only place where this idea is expressed 
in literature: — 

" Tell them ' I am,' Jehovah, said 

To Moses, while earth heard with dread ; 

And, smitten to the heart, 
At once, above, beneath, around, 
All nature, without voice or sound, 

Eeplied, ' Lord, thou art ! ' " 

He only knows the future well who knows the 
present well. The sagacious man can foresee, be- 
cause he can see. Insight is the only foresight. 
This, I think, applies to all prophetic power, even 
to that which is considered miraculous. It is sug- 
gested in that phrase which Jesus used more than 
once, " The hour cometh, and now is." Jesus saw 
what was to come, because he saw the germs and 
seeds of the future in the present. This he implied 
when he rebuked the Pharisees for not being able 
to see the signs of the times. "You can foretell 
that it is to be a fair or foul day to-morrow, by ob- 
serving the looks of the clouds around the set- 
ting sun. Why cannot ye discern the signs of the 
times in the same way?" The present hour is 



EVERY "NOW" THE DAY OF SALVATION. 195 

always big with the future. No historic fact comes 
outwardly in its manifestation till it has long been 
present inwardly by its law. Jesus foresaw his own 
death, the denial of Peter, the betrayal of Judas, 
the coming destruction of Jerusalem, because he 
knew what was already in men. He had seen the 
clouds gathering for that great storm. He under- 
stood that the logic of events would compel the 
rulers and Pharisees, unless they repented, to kill 
him. All his severe rebukes had for their object to 
force them to stop and think, and perhaps repent. 
And if they killed him, he knew what was to fol- 
low. E ejecting the peaceful king, the spiritual 
Messiah, nothing remained but that they should 
look for an outward salvation, a freedom for the na- 
tion from its Eoman yoke, and this would bring the 
destruction of Jerusalem and the people. All this 
Jesus foresaw because he looked with such profound 
vision into the present state of men's souls. He 
entered into the "now" by such penetrating insight 
that he could predict what was to come out of it. 

There is a sacramental religion which promises 
a future salvation on condition of certain actions 
which are supposed to possess a saving efficacy. 
But we degrade the sacraments when we ascribe to 
them any such magical charm. Unless they fill us 
now with better convictions and larger love, they 
can do us no good hereafter. ISTo mere routine of 
ritual or church-going will help us, except by lifting 
the soul nearer to God. We must believe in a 



196 E VERY-DAY RELIGION. 

present salvation, and possess that. Christ conies 
to us here and now. Every noiv is the day of sal- 
vation. We are saved when we escape from our 
selfishness into love, from our worldliness into 
purity, from our false lives into true ones. Then 
we are figuratively said to be Lorn again ; for it is 
like going into another world to pass out of selfish- 
ness into generosity, and to enter again the child- 
hood of simplicity and innocent purposes. 

In the same way we need a present Bible, a Bible 
to meet our present wants. The Bible helps us 
when we see in it what applies to our own day and 
time. We recognize in each of its characters the 
type of our own temptations, trials, hopes, sins, and 
pardon. We are Adam and Eve in the Garden. 
We are Abraham, going out he knows not where, 
trusting in God. We are David, trusting, hoping, 
sinning, repenting, being forgiven. If we look, we 
shall find something of Peter in ourselves, some- 
thing of the Pharisee, of the Sadducee, something 
of Pilate, something, perhaps, of Judas. What 
good does it do to believe that God forgave David 
his sin and Peter his sin,' unless we can believe 
that God will forgive our sin also ? The Bible is 
the book of books, because it is so filled with life 
that it seems to talk with us, to walk with us as 
Jesus walked to Emmaus with his disciples, and 
our heart burns within us as we read it. The best 
proof of its inspiration is that it is always new, 
always fresh, a present inspiration. 






EVERY "NOW" THE DAY OF SALVATION. 197 

In like manner heaven and hell are both here. 
We escape a future hell by coming out of our pres- 
ent hells. We reach a future heaven by the portal 
of a present heaven. How many hells do we not 
pass through in this world, — hells of anger, of pride, 
of cruel hatred, of cold selfishness, of bitter remorse ! 
The worm which does not die is the sense of the 
irreparable past, the thought, " I might have done 
differently, but it is now too late." The fire which 
is not quenched is the unsatisfied desire for more ; 
the ambition which never has enough, the greed 
which can never be contented ; the vanity, con- 
ceit, or pride which makes itself the one object in 
the universe. And we escape these present hells 
and enter a present heaven whenever we can really 
trust ourselves to a Father's love ; submit ourselves 
to a divine will ; consent to be led by an infinite 
wisdom, and so walk in this world surrounded by a 
perpetual light from above. 

The joy of childhood is that it is intent on the 
present. It does not brood, it does not long. Brood- 
ing and longing are also worms which gnaw the 
heart. Wishing for something we have not got, 
lamenting over something we have lost, — this takes 
the element of joy out of existence, and leaves us 
vapid, feeble, dissatisfied. Satisfaction means joy 
in the present hour. We are satisfied when we are 
able to see in the now enough of beauty, enough of 
good, to feed the soul. Some people are never satis- 
fied because always thinking, " Why can I not have 



198 E VERY-DAY RELIGION. 

that ? What a pity I did not do this ! " The thing 
they do not possess is that which they prize the 
most. 

Genius also, as well as happiness, is the power of 
seeing what there is in the present moment. Tal- 
ent takes what has been thought and said before 
and reproduces it in new and brilliant forms. But 
genius is the power of seeing, in some present fact, 
the divine truth and beauty which no one else has 
noticed. Most of our literature comes from men 
of talent, who give us repetitions of what men of 
genius said in past centuries. Young poets give us 
dilutions of Tennyson or Browning ; young critics 
offer us Macaulay or Mill, as the case may be, in a 
feebler form; artists copy other artists instead of 
copying nature ; orators model themselves on the 
standard and well-known masterpieces in their line. 
But genius does not repeat the old things. To 
genius, Now is the accepted time. Shakspeare 
finds all humanity in his own soul and in the men 
and women around him, and throws the light from 
his own heart into history, illuminating its dark- 
ness, as the revolving light on our coast sweeps the 
horizon with its helpful flame. He brings up the 
dead past, and makes that a living present, till 
Caesar and Coriolanus, Antony and Cleopatra, the 
streets of ancient Eome,-the Eialto of Venice, the 
old kings of Scotland, come up before us alive and 
fresh. The living now vivifies past and future. 

Between our eyes and the fact which is before 



EVERY "NOW" THE DAY OF SALVATION. 199 

our eyes is usually a film, composed of what we 
have heard and read about it. We see things 
through this glass darkly. Genius breaks the glass 
and sees them face to face. To genius, the present 
fact is the most interesting of all events, full of 
wisdom, interest, meaning. And the blessed power 
of genius is this : that it can enable us also to find 
this wonder and beauty in all that is around us and 
before us. We go to Scotland or to Cumberland 
to view the places which Walter Scott or Words- 
worth have made interesting. Looking through 
their eyes we can find something interesting in what 
otherwise we should never notice. 

Goodness also consists chiefly in this, that now is 
its accepted time. To be good is to be able to do 
the present duty. Some of us are always a little 
behindhand, and never quite catch up with what 
we ought to perform. We see the train going out 
of one end of the station just as we are entering the 
other. Instead of doing with our might whatever 
our hand finds to do. we think we shall find a more 
convenient season hereafter. How much would 
we not give for an opportunity of talking with the 
Apostle Paul ! Felix, the proconsul, had the op- 
portunity, but he sent Paul away, and said he would 
see him again some other time. Probably the hour 
had come for his afternoon rest, and so he put off 
his conversation with the Apostle. Of all mottoes, 
the one I should like to have written over my door 
would be, " Do it Now." Was it Dr. Johnson who 



200 E VERY-DAY RELIGION. 

had engraved on his watch the Greek text, Nvg 
ep%eT(u, — " The Night cometh" ? 

The postponement of duty usually comes from 
cowardice. We have not the courage to face the 
present moment, and so with one consent we beg to 
be excused. But I once knew a woman so brave 
that she never shrank from an occasion, or lost 
an opportunity, or postponed a work. She always 
seemed to have more power than she could use. 
She was ready to meet any person, any need, any 
demand. When the thing was decided, then it 
was done. Her thought and act were one. I have 
known a man who never said, Ci I will think about 
it and tell you to-morrow." He was always ready 
to do the best he could do now. In that way he 
put so much into life that he seemed to have 
done the work of ten men. It is said that the pro- 
ductive power of an acre of land has never yet been 
ascertained. So I think that it has never yet been 
ascertained how much can be done in a single day. 
Time is not wanting. There is time enough for all 
we need to learn, to see, to do. What we need is 
power, that is, quantity of life. 

The Jews, in the time of Christ, were expecting 
the reign of the Messiah, which they called the 
Kingdom of Heaven. They had read the prophetic 
descriptions of those glorious days, and believed in 
them. When Messiah comes he will teach us all 
things, he will help us do all things. It will be 
easy then to be good, it will be natural to love God 



EVERY "NOW" THE DAY OF SALVATION. 201 

and man. But till he conies we must remain as we 
are. One of the marvellous qualities of Jesus was 
his ability to see that the Kingdom of Heaven was 
at hand, and that he himself was the Messiah. " The 
hour cometh and now is," he said. "I that speak 
to thee am he." The Jews had not the power to 
rise to this height of immediate vision, and see with 
open eyes the actual reign of God. " No," said they, 
"you cannot be the Christ. It is blasphemy for 
you to profess to be the Christ. Can any good 
thing come out of Nazareth ? Can anything which 
we see and know be divine ? We know this man 
whence he is, but when Christ comes no one will 
know from whence he came. Messiah will not walk 
and talk with the common people like one of them- 
selves. He will be too great and inaccessible for 
that. How absurd, indeed how wicked, for a man 
to say he is the Christ, when we know his father and 
mother, and whose brothers and sisters are with us ! 
His father is Joseph the carpenter, whose shop 
is in the street called El-Husseph, in Nazareth." 
Most people are mentally too far-sighted, — they 
can see what is at a distance, not what is near. In 
the vale of Chamounix you cannot see the summit 
of Mont Blanc ; but when you go fifteen miles 
away, it ' rises above all lesser mountains, and soars 
up into the skies in vast fields of dazzling snow, with 
frozen rivers plunging down enormous ravines ; rises 
like a cloud of incense from the earth, in its charm 
and wonder. So the world had to go away several 



202 E VERY-DAY RELIGION. 

centuries from Jesus before it could behold him. 
His own greatness was to be able to find in himself 
the essential character of the Messiah ; to find power 
in himself to fulfil all prophecy; to know that 
the hour had come and was already present ; to 
realize the majestic visions of Isaiah and David, 
and to say, " I who speak to thee am he." 

In taking this ground, Jesus went back to the 
original Mosaic idea. The whole religion of Moses 
bore directly on the present life. Other religions 
laid the main stress on the future world and dis- 
paraged the present. But original Hebraism said 
not a word about the hereafter; it put its whole 
religious life into the hour. "Now" was its ac- 
cepted time. Its God was a present God ; Jehovah 
dwelling in the midst of the people, going before 
them in their journeys, staying with them as their 
King. This life was so full of God's presence that 
they did not think of the future. A future life is 
hardly mentioned in the Old Testament. The re- 
ligious problem of the Brahmins aud Buddhists is 
how to escape from time into eternity ; the problem 
of Judaism and Christianity is how to put eternity 
into time. 

Jesus renewed and fulfilled the old Mosaic idea, 
the old prophetic vision of " Immanuel, God with 
us." The Tabernacle of God was with men: the 
New Jerusalem came down from heaven. The 
Besurrection and the Life were not future, but 
present. Christianity came as a new inspiration to 






EVERY "NOW" THE DAY OF SALVATION. 203 

man, bringing God near, immortality near, heaven 
near; and making them all present, immediate, a 
part of each man's life, not far from any one of us. 

The Christian Church has often backslidden to 
the standpoint of Brahmanism in asserting that 
heaven must be postponed to the next world, and 
that it is necessary to be miserable and sinful as 
long as we live in this. It has loved to say that 
" former days were better than these," and to com- 
plain of the degeneracy of the times. But true 
Christianity never does this. It looks at the Now 
as miraculous and full of a divine spirit. It makes 
the world full of God now, — nature full of God, man 
a child of God, the Holy Spirit coming and dwelling 
in all hearts that open themselves to receive it. 

What we need, therefore, at this time as much as 
ever, is to believe in a present salvation, and to be 
sure that Now is the accepted time. We need a God 
at hand, not afar off; a present and not a past 
inspiration ; a present Saviour, a present Immor- 
tality, an eternal life abiding in us, and a heaven 
in our midst. 

Perhaps it may be objected that to live only in 
the moment belongs to animals and to children ; 
that the chief dignity of man is to look before and 
after, — to go back to the past and forward to the 
future ; that so only he finds true freedom and can 
emancipate himself from the dominion of time and 
space; that progress consists in bringing the past 
and future to bear on the present, and that goodness 



204 EVERY-DAY RELIGION. 

consists in rising into communion with universal 
truth and immortal goodness. I grant it ; but this 
does not disturb my argument. 

The animal lives in the present moment only. 
The child lives in the present moment chiefly. The 
man returns to the past and dwells there, penetrates 
the future and lingers there, lives in memory, lives 
in fancy. The first stage of being is to live only or 
chiefly in the present ; the second stage is to live in 
the past or the future. But the highest condition is 
to come back once more to the present but on a 
higher plane ; to bring the past and future together 
in every moment ; to live now, fed with all the re- 
sources of history and prophecy. The present mo- 
ment is the element of real life ; but this life is to 
be enriched by memory and by hope, by experience 
and by expectation. 

Therefore, we say again, that now is the accepted 
time. The Bible of the past, venerable and holy, 
must be translated into the language of to-day, and 
become a living Bible to meet the needs of men 
and women here in Xew England. Christ, about 
whose past history men are so doubtful, will become 
more and more the centre of the human race as his 
salvation reigns within, and comes outwardly into 
our own society to save publicans and sinners in 
our midst. The great record of the Xew Testa- 
ment will cease to be an object of criticism when 
we behold its miracles surpassed by those done by 
the power of Jesus among ourselves. All doubts 



EVERY "NOW" THE DAY OF SALVATION. 205 

of a future life will cease when we have eternal life 
abiding in us here. All gloom concerning sin and 
misery will pass away when we see how our own 
past sin and pain have been transfigured by Chris- 
tianity, and changed into goodness and joy. Thus 
shall the past and future be made one with the 
present, and every Now become the accepted time 
and day of salvation. 



XIV. 
STANDING IN THE DOORWAY. 



XIV. 

STANDING IN THE DOOKWAY. 



"TT^TE must all have noticed the habit so many 
V V have of standing in doorways, — in the door- 
way of a railway station, of a lecture hall, of a 
church, of places of amusement. Sometimes people 
stand in the doorway looking out, but will not go 
out. After church is over, or when the concert or 
lecture is finished, they walk rapidly till they reach 
the doorway, and then they relax their hurried 
steps, and come to a standstill, regardless of those 
behind, who are thus hindered from going forth. 
When they arrive at the door, they hesitate as if 
uncertain which way to go, and reluctant to trust 
themselves to the uncertain world outside. Like 
the people in the hymn, 

" They linger, shivering, on the brink, 
And fear to launch away." 

In like manner people hesitate about going in. 
At public meetings of all sorts, at political meetings, 
meetings for philanthropic or religious objects, men 

14 



210 EVERY-DAY RELIGION. 

fill the doorways, looking in, but not able to make 
up their minds to enter. They will not go in them- 
selves, and those who are going in they hinder. 
They are not quite sure whether or not they wish 
to go in. They do not know if the meeting is for 
them, if they belong there, if they have a right to 
enter, if they shall find a seat, if they shall en- 
joy themselves. The motive which led them to 
the place was strong enough to bring them to the 
door, but not strong enough to carry them over the 
threshold. 

These habits in our neighbors are so annoying 
that we notice them, though we may often do the 
same things ourselves. "When we are prevented 
from going in or from going out by these hesitat- 
ing and delaying people, we are not pleased. And 
sometimes I think it might be well to have placards 
over the doors of public places to warn persons not 
to linger in the passage. Just as we are warned 
not to walk on the grass in the Public Garden, 
why not have placards to remonstrate against stand- 
ing in the doorway ? 

But a similar want of decision is to be found in 
other matters. There are intellectual doorways — 
gates of thought — where undecided persons linger* 
uncertain whether to go in or to stay out. There are 
people who caunot make up their minds to believe 
•nor yet to disbelieve. These we call sceptics. 

Xow, a transient state of scepticism is, no doubt, 
sometimes inevitable. Men ought not to commit 






STANDING IN THE DOORWAY. 211 

themselves to a creed without reflection. There 
is neither sin nor shame in keeping one's mind in 
suspense, so long as we see no good reason for be- 
lieving. Scepticism may be a step from unbelief to 
belief, as well as one in the other direction As a 
step it is very well, only it is not well to remain 
standing on the step forever. Go in, or go out. It 
is better to do one or the other. 

Doubt or uncertainty about great moral and relig- 
ious truths is not an indication of mental strength, 
but rather of mental weakness. There is no strength 
in unbelief; all mental strength comes from believ- 
ing. It comes from the sight of truth, from clear 
and strong convictions. There may be no guilt in 
doubting, but there is always weakness. 

There are, however, those who take credit to 
themselves as advanced thinkers, because they doubt 
and question all things. When a steamboat gets 
into a fog, it does not advance ; if it does, it is 
in danger of shipwreck. The mind which is in 
a fog cannot advance ; it drifts helplessly, without 
aim. 

This is a disease of our time, and one which we 
all share. We are in a transition state, — standing 
in the doorway of many a belief. Where our 
fathers were certain, we doubt. This is unavoid- 
able ; only let us not prolong the situation unneces- 
sarily. Let us make up our minds when we can, 
and be glad to do so. Let us believe as much as 
we are able honestly and sincerely to believe, being 



212 EVERY-DAY RELIGION. 

sure that the mind was made to see and accept 
truth, and not to remain in perpetual uncertainty. 

We cannot believe all that our fathers did, for in 
some things their belief seems to us to have been 
false. But we can only advance by believing more, 
not by believing less. They believed God to be 
a stern king; let us believe in him as an infinite 
Father. Thus, we believe more than they did, 
since the idea of a father includes justice and 
mercy both ; authority and love and wisdom. I 
read tracts and hear sermons which solemnly warn 
us not to trust too much to the divine mercy, be- 
cause God is not only merciful, but also just. 
They tell us it is necessary first to be afraid be- 
cause he is just, and then to be glad because he 
is merciful. A pious man, on this theory, is always 
vacillating between fear and hope. Dr. Emmons, 
who preached this doctrine during fifty years, did 
not know, on his death-bed, whether he was to be 
saved or not. He hoped he was, but thought it 
very possible he might be lost. He was still stand- 
ing in the doorway ; he had not gone into the 
peace of the gospel. But a child who loves his 
father has no such alternations ; no such chill of 
fear, followed by the fever of hope. He does not 
say, " I ought not to trust too entirely to my father's 
love; I ought to remember he is just as well as 
merciful." No ; he trusts his father without doubt 
or fear. He knows that his father's justice is only 
another form of his love. He does not stand in 



STANDING IN THE DOORWAY. 213 

the doorway; he goes in, and is at home and at 
peace. 

If we reject the doctrine of the Trinity, and do 
not accept God as a mysterious triad, let us not, 
therefore, stand hesitating in the doorway of thought 
concerning God, but endeavor to enter in and 
learn more of him. We may see more of God in the 
faith of reason and in the light of advancing science 
than our fathers did ; more and not less. We may 
know God as the ever-present power, pervading all 
time and space, — filling the vast regions which 
astronomy has disclosed, the enormous periods of 
time which geology reveals. Yet we may find him 
no less present as a father, as a guiding providence, 
as protector and friend. We may still say, " Our 
Father who art in heaven." We may say, "The 
Lord is my shepherd ; I shall not want." Let us 
not stand in the doorway of this majestic temple 
where God abides, but go in and live in that Di- 
vine Presence, and be blest. 

Nor let us stand in the doorway of Christianity, 
hesitating whether to go in, because perhaps we 
have not made up our mind about miracles, or 
about the supernatural, or about inspiration. Do 
we gain peace and comfort in the words of Jesus ? 
Is he the best teacher we can find ; that the world 
has found ? When we go to him in trouble do our 
souls find rest ? When we are conscious of sin does 
he reveal to us the pardoning love of God ? Has he 
put that spirit in our heart by which we say " Our 



214 E VERY-DAY RELIGION. 

Father " ? Christians are not what they ought to be. 
Granted. But has Christianity helped to break the 
chains of the slave ? Has it brought light to the 
ignorant ? Has it been on the side of education and 
progress ? Has it built hospitals for the blind, the 
insane, the deaf and dumb ? If we wish to do any 
good to our fellow-men, do we not appeal to Christ's 
teachings and promises ? Then Christianity is what 
we need ; and let us not hesitate, but go in and find 
food and rest and comfort. 

We do not believe all that our fathers did con- 
cerning Jesus Christ. He may no longer be to us 
the mysterious God-man, infinite and finite at once, 
second person in the Trinity, eternally born from 
the Father. These statements are passing away; 
they live no longer in the faith of reason. Jesus is 
now the Son of God because he had the spirit of a 
son, and because to him God was always father. 
He is our clear human brother, our best teacher, our 
noblest friend, who lifts oar thoughts from earth to 
heaven, from time to eternity. We have more faith 
in him, not less, when we thus believe, for we see 
more clearly all that he was and is. Only let us 
not stand hesitating in regard to this faith, but 
believe fully and earnestly all we can. Let us not 
stand half way in and half way out of Christianity, 
but gladly enter into whatever peace and strength 
the gospel can give to us. 

And so in regard to immortality and the future 
life our belief has changed from that of former 



STANDING IN THE DOORWAY. 215 

days. We do not now suppose the future world 
to consist of a heaven of perfect bliss on one 
side and a hell of infinite torture on the other. We 
believe in progress hereafter as here ; many man- 
sions there as here, many heavens and many hells, 
and an infinite variety of circumstances and condi- 
tions. Therefore, we need not believe less in a 
future life, but more, because it is now seen to be 
rational and natural, a continuation of the present, 
with the same divine laws in both. Believing 
thus in immortality, let us not believe hesitatingly, 
but with all our mind and strength. Let us dwell 
in heavenly places ; let immortality begin now ; let 
us have eternal life abiding in us. 

Instead of hesitating to believe any truth because 
we cannot believe everything, let us believe all we 
can ; see all we can ; pass through the door into 
the temple of knowledge and dwell therein. 

Standing in the doorway of action without going 
in is also a disease and danger. To be practically 
undecided weakens the character. In fact, strength 
of character consists largely in the power of deci- 
sion. " Be sure you are right, and then go ahead," 
was the saying of the backwoodsman of Texas ; 
and in this he agreed with the Apostle James, who 
said, " A double-minded man is unstable in all his 
ways." " He that wavereth is like a wave of the 
sea, driven with the winds and tossed." To be 
able to decide, and then put forth all one's powers 
without further hesitation, — this makes the man of 



216 EVERY-DAY RELIGION. 

action. We had several generals in our war who 
could never make up their minds, and this inde- 
cision cost the lives of many brave men. 

Indecision in morals is dangerous. To stand in 
the doorway of a good action and refuse to go in 
injures the moral character. When we have made 
up our mind that we ought to do anything, to hesi- 
tate about doing it makes us worse. Indecision here 
is immorality. 

Many people do not like to commit themselves. 
But to commit one's self to what is right is to take 
a great step forward. Then right doing becomes 
easy, which before was difficult. These are the 
steps upward in life. Many people refuse to join 
a church, or to join a temperance society, because 
they do not like to promise what they may not be 
able to perform. But to commit themselves will 
often help them to perform what they undertake to 
do. When we unite with those who are wishing 
to do good things, we find ourselves in a current 
which carries us forward in the ridit direction. 

I know very well that we may be sometimes 
entrapped unwisely by such pledges. People may 
be persuaded to join churches where they do not 
feel at home, where they have no common convic- 
tions, no real sympathy, and from which it may 
take them a long time to become free. So political 
conventions sometimes let themselves be entrapped 
into a pledge to vote for the nominee, whoever he 
may be. This they have no right to do. He may 



STANDING IN THE DOORWAY. 217 

be a man unfit for the office. They have no 
right to promise beforehand to vote for him. They 
thus renounce their own right of private judgment 
and freedom of conscience. No one has any right 
to abdicate his conscience or give up his freedom of 
opinion. When we join a church or a society for 
any moral purpose, it should be distinctly under- 
stood that we have a right to leave it again if our 
convictions of duty change. 

But, with these restrictions, it is a great help 
to commit one's self to what one considers good 
and right. Suppose Paul had hesitated about be- 
coming a Christian after he had seen the celestial 
vision, how much would have been lost ! He would 
have remained a Pharisee, but a doubting Pharisee, 
having lost his old faith and not having found a 
new one. But he committed himself. He went 
forward through the doorway into the Church. He 
became a disciple, then an apostle of Christianity. 
He became, as he says, " A new creature ; old 
things are passed away, all things are become new." 
Paul might have said, " I will go back to Jerusalem, 
I will think about it a while longer. The time has 
not come for Christianity to succeed. Let us tem- 
porize; let us wait for a few years, and the San- 
hedrim will come round." But he did not stand 
hesitating in the doorway. He went in, and com- 
mitted himself absolutely to the new faith, and so 
became a new creature, the great apostle of a world- 
wide and universal religion, the prophet of another 



218 EVERY-DAY RELIGION. 

religion, to Europe, the founder of modern civili- 
zation. Through him, Christianity dropped its 
Jewish dress and became the gospel for universal 
man. 

Suppose Luther had hesitated. He might easily 
have done so. He might have said, " The hour has 
not come. The time is not ripe for such a vast 
movement. Let us wait a little longer. Let us try 
to convert the wise and prudent to our way of 
thinking. Consult Erasmus and see what he 
says," But no ; Luther said, " Here I am. I cannot 
do otherwise. God help me. Amen ! " He must 
speak his word, whether men would hear or for- 
bear. His trumpet gave no uncertain sound. He 
went forward alone and moved the whole world. 

Suppose Garrison and his friends had hesitated, 
and declined to preach the abolition of slavery. 
They had great reason to delay. They had against 
them all the great forces of society, — commerce, 
the press, the two great political parties, all social 
influences, the so-called aristocracy on one side, and 
mobs on the other. They had with them only truth 
and justice. But they did not hesitate. They 
did not stand in the doorway, but went forth, not 
knowing whither they went. The Lord was on 
their side, and they did not fear. Human nature 
was on their side. Answers and' encouragement 
came to them from all quarters, and at last they 
saw the triumph of their cause, and could sing their 
song of thanksgiving and joy. 



STANDING IN THE DOORWAY. 219 

In every man's life there come moments when 
he is called to decide whether to go forward or 
to stand still. Timidity says, " Hesitate ! " Pru- 
dence says, " Be not too hasty. Take time ! " 
Self-interest says, " You may hurt yourself ; you 
may run risks. You may injure your prospects of 
worldly success." But conscience says, " The hour 
has come. Go and do your duty," and everything 
generous and noble in the heart responds, and 
says amen ! 

" So nigh is grandeur to our dust, 
So near is God to man, 
When Duty whispers low, ' Thou must ! 
The youth replies, ' I can ! ' " 

These are the great occasions, which come once, 
often not again. If we let them go by unimproved, 
they are lost. These are the times which try men's 
souls. 

Let us remember that such hesitations not only 
injure ourselves, but injure others. We do not go 
in ourselves, and we hinder others who else might 
enter. Our indecision makes others undecided. 
When people see that we hesitate to believe, they 
think themselves wise in hesitating. Doubt be- 
comes a fashion. Weak-minded persons take a 
certain pride in not believing what others have 
believed. They deem themselves somewhat more 
free and bold in their thought. When the leaders, 
who should go forward, stand hesitating, they hesi- 
tate too. The common people naturally love what- 



220 EVERY-DAY RELIGION. 

ever is generous, manly, and honest. But they 
hesitate in expressing these sentiments because the 
wise and prudent refrain. Thus, when those who 
are in the front stand still, all behind them have to 
stand still too. 

It is curious and sad to see how many people 
stand in the doorway of religion, afraid to enter in. 
It is often because they have a false notion of what 
religion is. They imagine it to be some renunciation 
of human and earthly life ; some denial not only of 
evil pleasure, but also of innocent pleasure ; some for- 
mal and solemn profession; something unnatural. 

But in truth what does religion mean but the 
sense of a heavenly love, making all life full of 
peace ? It means taking God for our Father and 
Friend ; seeing him in the beauty of nature, in the 
laws of creation, in the events of life, in the glad 
and solemn days, in sunshine and clouds, a perpet- 
ual providence. It means seeking to do his will; 
walking in every right way ; doing whatever is good 
and just and pure ; making right, and not wrong, the 
end of life ; living for noble ends and not for mean 
ones. It means, as our JSTew England poet teaches 
us : — 

" That all our sorrow, pain, and doubt 

A great compassion clasps about ; 

And law and goodness, love and force, 

Are wedded fast beyond divorce. 



That the dear Christ dwells not afar, 
The Lord of some remoter star, 



STANDING IN THE DOORWAY. 221 

Listening, at times, with flattered ear 
To homage wrung from selfish fear ; 
But here, amid the poor and blind, 
The bound and suffering of our kind, 
In works we do, in prayers we pray, 
Life of our life — he lives to-day." 



XV. 
FOUR KINDS OF PIETY. 



XV. 
FOUR KINDS OF PIETY. 



[" WISH we could find another word than "piety" 
-*- to express our love to God, for this has fallen 
into some disrepute at the present time, and to 
many has not an attractive sound. To some it is 
associated with spiritual pride, hypocritical profes- 
sion, religious talk which is not borne out by up- 
right action. To others piety seems a good thing, 
but almost too good for this world, — good for 
exceptional persons, for born saints ; proper enough 
for clergymen, but hardly to be demanded of men 
and women who have to work all day in the midst 
of worldly matters. What I wish to show, there- 
fore, is, that true piety, or love to God, is the most 
simple, natural, and rational action of the human 
mind ; that it is for every one everywhere ; that it 
is necessary, not so much for future salvation as for 
present peace and for successful lives. In short, it 
is something which none of us can do without, and 
which we may all have. 

15 



226 E VERY-DAY RELIGION, 

But to show this I must distinguish between 
different kinds of piety, in order that we may per- 
ceive the difference between the substance and the 
accidental varying forms. 

There is one important question, howeA~er, which 
comes first, which needs consideration. Piety is 
love to God. But how can love be a duty ? Can 
we ever love as a duty, or by an effort of the will ? 
Whatever we are commanded to do we ought to be 
able to do by our own efforts, for the limit of obli- 
gation is power. Anything which is an act of the 
will may be clone in obedience to a command ; but 
how can an affection be commanded ? The child 
does not love bis father, mother, brothers, and sis- 
ters because it is a duty, but because he is made 
happy by their intercourse. 

How then can we love God in obedience to a 
command ? Especially when God is so far off, an 
invisible being, dwelling in light inaccessible, infi- 
nitely removed from all our experience ? 

I answer, frankly, that it is impossible. Xo human 
effort can create love; and therefore when the Xew 
Testament makes love the fulfilment of all duty, 
and says that without love no duty can be done as 
it ought to be, it does not and cannot mean a duty 
which can be done by a mere effort of the will. 

God, when he asks anything of us, gives us the 
power to do it. When he asks the child to love its 
parents, he makes the duty easy by causing them 
first to love their child. Because the child sees love 



FOUR KINDS OF PIETY. 227 

in its father's and mother's face from the beginning, 
it easily loves them in return. The mother's love 
for her infant creates, or at least develops and brings 
out, the answering affection of the infant. The 
mother's loving look is reflected from her infant's 
face as in a mirror. The children may say of their 
parents, " We love them because they first loved 
us." And the apostle of love, John, tells us that 
piety is born in the same way, — " We love Him 
because he first loved us." 

We can therefore only love God by seeing in 
some way that he loves us. In this matter we 
cannot take the initiative. We cannot love God in 
order to induce him to love us. As the infant looks 
up into its mother's face, and sees her tender, happy 
smile, so we must see God's smile descending into 
our hearts from his inaccessible throne. We can- 
not go up there to find him ; but be sure that, if he 
wishes for our love, he will come down to us and 
find us. What we have to do, and all that we can 
do, is to look up and see his goodness, open our 
hearts and receive his love. We can choose to 
receive it, or refuse. We can put ourselves in a 
receptive attitude, or not. W T hen God commands 
us to love him, it is as if he said, "Behold how 
I love you." 

But there are four different ways by which we 
look, four different methods of seeing God's love ; 
and these produce the four different forms of piety. 
There may be more, and doubtless are more than 



228 E VERY-DAY RELIGION. 

four ; but these constitute the principal varieties of 
this great influence and this vast joy. 

1. The first kind of piety is emotional piety, or 
piety of the feelings. There are two varieties of 
this, the sacramental and the sympathetic. Sacra- 
mental piety is born of faith in the grace of God 
given through sacraments. It is found most often 
in the great sacramental churches. There is a de- 
vout pleasure derived from taking part in the cere- 
monies, the festivals, the liturgies and anthems 
made memorable by the worship of a thousand 
years. There is a sincere comfort and peace felt 
in leaving the world of noise and traffic, and enter- 
ing into the solitudes of prayer and praise, into 
that house of God which seems the gate of heaven. 
How many great and good souls, saints and mar- 
tyrs, have been fed by these ceremonies and lifted 
above the earth by their solemn influence ! The 
imagination is touched by the grand religious ar- 
chitecture, the imposing ritual, the divine music, 
and the vast multitude of adoring worshippers. He 
who cannot feel this is deficient in some of the 
human sentiments. 

Another form of this kind of piety is the sym- 
pathetic emotion caught from crowds. This is 
awakened in revivals, camp-meetings, and social 
religious gatherings, where those who come to scoff 
often remain to pray. As God is felt to be near 
in the solemn rites and awful forms of the sacra- 
mental churches, so he is also felt to be present in 



FOUR KINDS OF PIETY. 229 

the contagious fire which runs through a meeting 
of warm-hearted worshippers. In both places many 
feel, for the first time, that God is not far from us, 
that we are his children, and are made to realize 
a father's love. They learn to love God with all 
their heart. 

2. The Piety of Personal Salvation. There is a 
second kind of piety which comes from a sense 
of pardoned sin. This grace of God which brings 
salvation has had great power, and accomplished 
vast results. It has always existed side by side 
with sacramental and emotional piety, but it be- 
came most conspicuous as the great motive power 
of the Protestant Eeformation. While the sacra- 
mental and emotional churches — the Eoman Cath- 
olics, Episcopalians, and Methodists — find the 
presence and love of God revealed to them in their 
public and social worship, the Calvinistic denomi- 
nations struggle and agonize and pray alone, and 
receive a sense of God's pardoning love given to 
each soul for its own personal salvation. Through 
this struggle each one goes by himself; he is alone 
with his conscience and his God. He seeks and 
finds salvation for himself, and loves God with an 
intense gratitude for having ransomed and redeemed 
him from sin and evil. He loves God with all his 
soul, for that is what God has saved from despair 
and death. 

3. The Piety of Beason. There is a third kind 
of piety, — one in which men love God with all 



230 E VERY-DAY RELIGION. 

their mind, seeing his boundless goodness in the 
my steries of creation ; feeling that from him and 
through him and to him are all things. This is the 
piety which inspires the sublime song of Milton, 
the universal prayer of Pope, the solemn litanies 
of Wordsworth, and the tender strains of Whittier. 
These poets see God in the majesty of Nature, in the 
changing year, in the vast laws of the universe, which 
are from everlasting to everlasting. They say : — 

" These, as they change, Almighty Father, these 
Are but the varied God. The rolling year 
Is Ml of thee." 

Swedenborg wtis one who loved God with all 
his mind, who lived in the thought of God's pres- 
ence in all things, to whom Nature and life were 
a manifestation of God. So, too, was Spinoza, the 
" God-intoxicated man," as Schleiermacher called 
him, living in loneliness, poverty, obscurity, but 
thinking of God all clay long. So, too, among the 
Greeks was Plato, whose vast religious influence 
has been felt among serious thinkers down to our 
times. These men loved God with their mind, 
and the grace of God came to them through their 
thoughts. Science, too, in our day is growing 
deeply religious. It occupies itself with the methods 
of divine creation, with questions of universal law. 
Passing from the observation of unrelated facts, 
which was the method of the last century, it ad- 
vances to larger speculations as to the whence and 
how. 



FOUR KINDS OF PIETY. 231 

We have seen three ways by which the grace of 
God comes, creating piety. By a sense of a divine 
presence mediated by sacraments and churches, 
and felt in the sympathy of religious meetings ; by 
the influence of the heavenly love which was shown 
in the death of Jesus, and which has power to 
purify the soul from evil ; and by that experimen- 
tal knowledge of God which results from religious 
thought and intellectual inquiry. Now, we ask, Is 
there any other way by which we can enter into the 
love of God ; by which practical men, immersed in 
business, yet desirous of not losing the religious life, 
wishing to see and know and serve God, can also 
enter into his love? There are great numbers of 
men who cannot, or at least do not, become pious 
in any of the previous ways. They do not enjoy 
rituals or take delight in ceremonial religion. Nor 
do they believe in the religion of sympathy or 
get any good from revival meetings. They are 
accustomed to stand firm on their feet, and are not 
carried away by excitement or emotion. Nor do 
they enter into the experiences of those who make 
Christianity a question of the salvation of the indi- 
vidual soul, of sin and pardon. They are conscien- 
tious men, who have always meant to do right. 
They know, to be sure, that they have done wrong 
things, but they are sorry for them, and they be- 
lieve that God will forgive them, just as they for- 
give any one who has injured them and is sorry 
for it. Nor are they religious thinkers, spending 



232 E VERY-DAY RELIGION. 

their time in meditation on God, duty, and immor- 
tality. They are doing the work of the world. Is 
there any kind of piety which they can have, or 
are they to be always left, as they have been usu- 
ally left, to work without the inspiration and joy 
which come from the sense of God's love in what 
they do ? 

4. Piety from Work. I answer that I believe 
there is still another way in which God's love is 
brought to man. I believe that work also can be a 
sacrament by which the divine grace may be medi- 
ated ; that love may descend into the soul by means 
of labor ; that duty may be the step upward into 
piety ; that we may be led by God while engaged 
in our daily work, and that what is often called 
mere morality may be the natural way to an in- 
ward spiritual life. 

Thus may the grace of God which brings salva- 
tion come to those who are seeking to serve their 
fellow-men. Work may lead us into prayer. We 
may learn to pray, not as a duty, not as a senti- 
ment, not from sympathy, not for our own salva- 
tion, not by an intellectual piety, but because we 
need the help of God to enable us to fulfil our 
duties to others. 

There is work which can be done, perhaps, with- 
out prayer, — mechanical work, routine work, which 
is done with the hands alone. But whenever an oc- 
casion occurs in which we work to help others, but 
do not know how ; in which we ought to do some- 






FOUR KINDS OF PIETY. 233 

thing for them, but are unable to do it aright ; then 
we may throw ourselves on the help of God. We 
may say to God, " My Father, I am here, ready to 
do anything I can ; show me how to do it." And 
by some sure but mysterious law the way is opened, 
the help comes. We see that as faith leads to work, 
so also work may lead to faith. 

This is a form of piety which is to be ; a Christ 
who is to come. It is piety coming from work as 
a sacrament; the religious form of duty. And I 
think it will be in some respects higher and 
stronger, deeper and more thorough, than the senti- 
mental piety of the church, the emotional piety of 
the revival meeting, the salvation piety of the Cal- 
vinist, or the intellectual piety of the religious 
thinker. It will be loving God with all our strength. 
The moment we undertake any really Christian 
work we need this kind of piety. Here, for in- 
stance, is a young girl who takes a class in a Sunday 
school. She desires not merely to hear the children 
repeat lessons from the Bible, but to lead them to 
God. She wishes to impart to their souls some 
principle by which they can be kept safe amid all 
the trials and temptations which may come. How 
can she ever do such a great work ? She feels 
wholly inadequate to the task. She is discouraged 
when she thinks of it. Therefore she may very 
likely give it up, and say she is not fit to be a 
teacher, that she does not know how, that she is not 
good enough, and the like. But suppose she believes 



234 EVERY-DAY RELIGION. 

that whenever we wish to do any Christian work, 
any good for others, some power will come to us if 
we ask it. Then, instead of giving up her class of 
children, she will ask of God before each meeting 
that he will help her to do them real good ; and if 
she finds that this prayer is always answered, she 
will go on with increasing courage and faith. 

Let us suppose another is asked to be a visitor to 
the poor. This, also, is a difficult duty. To go as 
a friend, not as a patron ; to help, and not to harm ; 
to make them feel that you are a brother or a sister, 
not an official visitor ; to say the right thing, the 
wisest thing, to put a new spirit of faith, hope, 
cheer, confidence into their hearts, — who can do this 
by any power of his own ? But if we believe that 
there is a divine law, working as regularly as the 
laws of physics and chemistry, by which a prayer 
for help to enable us to do good will give us power 
which we should not have unless we prayed, then 
we can go to any task, however difficult, with cour- 
age and faith. 

How we shrink from seeing one in some terrible 
distress, — some one on whom an awful calamity 
has fallen ! We say, " What can I do ? I can do 
nothing." But if we believed that God would cer- 
tainly give us power to say the right word, to pour 
life and comfort into that bruised heart, and if we 
asked for such power, we should go instantly and 
cheerfully, because we should go relying wholly on 
him. 



FOUR KINDS OF PIETY. 235 

Clergymen are often called to the dying or the 
bereaved. Once I hesitated, lest I should not find 
the best words of comfort. Now I know that the 
right thing will be given. At such times we may 
trust in the Master's promise, "Take no thought 
what to say or speak, for it shall be given you 
in that hour what ye ought to say." 

Jesus says, " If ye ask anything in my name, I 
will do it. Ask and receive, that your joy may be 
full." Again he says that God will give all things 
when we ask in the name of Christ. Now, to " ask 
in the name of Christ " is certainly not merely to 
use the word " Christ." It is not to say, " We ask 
it through Jesus Christ." It is to ask in the spirit 
of Christ. But the spirit of Christ is that which 
does good to others. When we wish to do good to 
others, we are in the spirit of Christ. If then we 
pray for power to help others, we are praying in 
the name of Christ. Then we may ask what we 
need, and be sure that it will be given. Some 
power, some faith, some love, some wisdom will come 
to us, to enable us to help others. 

Thus may piety be born of duty, and work be a 
sacrament, helping us to come into the love of God. 
All the other methods of piety are good, but perhaps 
this may be the best of all. The piety is good 
which comes to the human soul through churches 
and worship ; through sympathy and communion ; 
through the sense of sin and the sense of forgive- 
ness ; through intellectual aspiration scaling the 



236 E VERY-DAY RELIGION. 

heights of universal law. But possibly the best of 
all may be the faith born of work, the piety which 
conies through duty, the prayer which is made for 
power to help our fellow-men. 

Piety which is born out of morality will have 
this advantage. It will be nearer than any other 
to prayer without ceasing. As these Christian 
duties meet us, not on Sunday only, but all through 
the week, this will be a piety for all the working 
hours of life. As we see the results of this prayer, 
our faith will continually grow stronger. 

This prayer will bring us near to Christ as well 
as to God, for it will be the result of work done for 
Christ as well as for God. It will be natural, ra- 
tional, and practical. We shall pray just as we 
work, because there is something to be done which 
cannot be done well without prayer. This piety 
will be for men as well as for women, and we shall 
no more hear it said that religion is excellent for 
one half of the human race and not for the other. 
The prayer of action will balance and fulfil the 
prayer of sentiment. It will be more universal 
than any other, for all persons are called to do 
Christian work, but not all men are sacramentaliy 
inclined ; not all are able to believe in the atone- 
ment ; not all are disposed to sympathetic religion ; 
not all are made for philosophical piety. 

Finally, this piety which comes from daily Chris- 
tian work will tend to develop the highest form of 
Christian character. For it makes religion not a 



FOUR KINDS OF PIETY. 237 

separate part of life, but an inspiration of the whole ; 
not a sentimental feeling appropriate to Sundays 
and churches, but a vitalizing power creating love, 
thought, and action all the time. It gives a well- 
rounded character, in which action and love, mo- 
rality and piety, works and faith, are harmonized 
and made one. It makes the natural life also super- 
natural ; it brings down heaven to earth and lifts 
earth to heaven. 

Some men do not incline to sentimental piety, 
nor to sacramental piety, nor to the piety of creeds, 
excitement, and revivals. They do not easily accept 
the piety of atonement and expiation, which loves 
God because of one's personal salvation from death 
and destruction. They have not much taste for 
philosophical or mystical piety. But they are 
well fitted for the piety which is born out of 
daily duty ; for the prayer uttered when occasion 
arises, and not as a form or ceremony. They are 
constituted for this kind of religion, and I hope 
that through them may come another sight of di- 
vine love acting through steadfast law, — that 
influx of life which comes into every soul that 
seeks strength for it. This will be an influence 
from God to revolutionize the world. Then will 
the love of God and the love of man be seen to be 
one, and the whole Christian life be formulated in 
four blessed words, — from God, for man ! 

No doubt all these forms of piety are meant to 
be united. The time will come in which we shall 



238 EVERY-DAY RELIGION. 

meet God in the church and also in the street ; in 
the communion of saints and in the loneliness of 
the agony of the Garden ; in the depths of spir- 
itual thought, and the daily life of duty. All will 
be steps of Jacob's ladder leading up to heaven, on 
which the angels of God will go up to carry prayers 
and come down to bring blessings. 



XVI. 

WHAT WE POSSESS AND WHAT 
WE OWN. 



XVI. 

WHAT WE POSSESS AND WHAT WE 
OWN. 



" If you have not been faithful in that which is an- 
other's, who will give you that which is your own?"" 

r I ^HE doctrine of the New Testament is, that man 
■*■ is a steward, not an owner, of his possessions. 
His powers, faculties, opportunities, time, wealth, 
are talents confided to him, for which he is to give 
an account. The joys of this life do not belong to 
us ; we are never sure of them. God may resume 
them at any moment. We possess them, but do 
not own them. 

By " being faithful in that which is another's " is, 
therefore, plainly meant " being faithful as stewards 
of what God lends us." But what, then, is meant 
by the last clause of the text, " Who shall give you 
that which is your own ? " If we are only stewards 
of our possessions, do we own anything ? What is 
meant by " that which is our own " ? 

I answer that what we possess is outside of our- 
selves, and not necessarily ours; what we own is 

16 



242 EVERY-DAY RELIGION. 

within, a part of the soul, and is ours. What we 
possess is, in its very nature, transient ; what we 
own is, in its very nature, permanent. We possess 
our bodily health, but we do not own it ; for it may 
leave us at any moment. We possess wealth, but 
do not own it ; for it may take wings and fly away. 
We possess time, we do not own it ; for it passes 
away from us in a steady current. We possess 
fame, power, influence; and these also may be taken 
from us suddenly and entirely. But we own our 
convictions, rooted in personal knowledge ; we own 
our character, formed by faithful struggle, self-de- 
nial, loyalty to right, obedience to God. Y\ 7 e own 
the faith which resists all doubts and all trials ; the 
hope which grows more vigorous as the body dies ; 
the love which unites us permanently to God and 
man. Talents God lends us for a time ; but these 
are gifts which he bestows and gives forever. 
And they are sent as the result of our fidelity. 
Such is, I think, the meaning of the motto quoted 
above. 

This becomes more clear if we consider the pas- 
sage which precedes it, of which this statement is 
the conclusion and moral. Jesus had been telling 
his disciples the story of the unjust steward. The 
steward had neglected his master's interest, and 
wasted his property ; had been detected, and was 
to be removed from his office. So he determined to 
make use of his power while he had it, to procure 
himself advantages after he should have lost it. 



WHAT WE POSSESS AND WHAT WE OWN. 243 

He allowed his master's debtors to cut down the 
amount of their debts fifty per cent in some cases, 
twenty per cent in others, with the understanding 
that they would repay him for this afterward, shar- 
ing with him the amount of which they had cheated 
his master. There is nothing strange in this part of 
the transaction. It has a remarkably modern air. 
It was one of those operations by which officials 
have cheated their governments in all time. It 
seems from the parable that this trick was under- 
stood in the first century as well as in the nine- 
teenth. We know that, of the taxes levied by the 
ancient Eomans in the provinces, only a small part 
ever found its way into the treasury ; the rest was 
stolen by the tax-gatherers and the praetor. So it 
is in India, so in Eussia, to-day. The same trick 
'was practised in New York by Tweed and his com- 
panions, who allowed the contractors for the city to 
send in enormous bills, a large part of which, when 
paid, they took themselves. The same plan is pur- 
sued by the lobby to Congress and to State Legisla- 
tures, paying with stock those who will vote for 
their enterprises. 

But why should the master who had been plun- 
dered commend the steward who robbed him ? 
This is a more difficult question ; yet he may have 
commended prudence, while he condemned the 
fraud. Prudence, which uses present opportunities 
to secure future good, is right. The prudence was 
right, the knavery was wrong. And the point of 



244 E VERY-DAY RELIGION. 

the parable is, that we ought to put as much 
prudence, ingenuity, and cleverness into doing right 
as rogues use in doing wrong. 

It has often been the case that while knaves have 
been ingenious, adroit, and skilful in their rascality, 
good people have gone in a blind and helpless way 
about their good works. It is a sort of proverb that 
religious people are easily imposed upon, that they 
have little knowledge of the world or of human na- 
ture. If their purpose is right, they are contented. 
They are very apt to adopt this want of judgment 
as a rule, and to say, " Do right, and leave the re- 
sult to God." But since the Lord has given brains 
to good people as well as to bad people, why not 
use them ? Once in a great while we find a man, 
like Dr. Franklin, who is as adroit in doin°- right, 
as sagacious in doing good, as knaves are in doing 
wrong. He discovered ingenious ways of help- 
ing those who were in need. Charitable people 
often give in a way to create more suffering than 
they relieve. Philanthropists go blindly on their 
way ; patriots rush forward, inconsiderate of obsta- 
cles ; religious people have a zeal for God, without 
knowledge. But Jesus, by many methods, taught 
his disciples that they ought not only to be as harm- 
less as doves, but also as wise as serpents. With 
the devotion of martyrs, ready to die for their cause, 
they must join the utmost caution and good sense in 
working for it. They must, before attempting any 
work, count the cost, to see if they should be able to 



WHAT WE POSSESS AND WHAT WE OWN. 245 

finish it. It is not enough to mean to do good ; we 
must do it. Conscience, which only wishes to save 
its own soul, may say, " I will do right, and leave 
the result to God ; " but love, which desires to help 
its neighbor effectually, puts mind, as well as heart, 
into its work. It acts like the good Samaritan, 
who did not merely bind up the poor man's 
wounds, and then leave him ; but put him on his own 
beast, carried him to the inn, took care of him there, 
and, when he went away, made arrangements to 
have him provided for as long as he needed further 
help. We do not want a blind, fanatical philan- 
thropy, but a sagacious philanthropy and a sagacious 
patriotism, which keeps to its end, but carefully 
considers the means. 

I have heard prudence called " a rascally virtue." 
Jesus did not so regard it. And I think that when 
he meant to inculcate prudence he chose a bad wise 
man for an example and not a good wise man, that 
we might see that it was simply the wisdom that he 
was commending ; that prudence in itself was a good 
thing. In point of fact, folly joined with conscience 
often does more harm than sagacity united with 
sefishness. What an amount of harm has been done 
by well-meaning persons who did not stop to con- 
sider ; by blind zealots, doing wrong with the 
best intentions ; blind bigots, meaning to serve 
God by persecuting their neighbor ; inquisitors, con- 
scientiously cruel, paving hell with good intentions. 
Alas ! it is still true, as it was when Jesus said it, 



246 E VER Y-DA Y RELIGION. 

" that the children of this world are, in their gener- 
ation, wiser than the children of light." If Herod 
and Pilate wish to crucify Jesus, they make up 
their quarrels, and join forces. But if Christians 
wish to put down the sins of Boston, then, instead 
of joining forces, they divide into numerous sects 
and spend a large part of their time in attacking 
each other. 

Jesus illustrates this principle by showing what 
a mistake is made by many persons in the use of 
money ; how they are cheated by it, and do not 
get the real good out of it that they might. This is 
something we possess, but do not own ; but it may 
be used so as to give us something which we shall 
retain always. The widow who put her two mites 
into the treasury changed them into an everlasting 
possession, — self-content, peace of mind, conscious- 
ness of doing right. A person who sacrifices some 
pleasure he would enjoy, in order to give pleasure 
to another, changes a transient gratification into a 
permanent power of character. A man who is faith- 
ful, upright, perfectly honest in his business where 
custom might allow him not to be so, where few 
"would think worse of him for not beino- so strict, — 
he also gives up a transient gain for a permanent 
habit of soul. This is what Jesus means by saying, 
" Make yourselves friends of the unrighteous Mam- 
mon, so that when ye fail they may receive you into 
everlasting habitations." " Mammon of unrighteous- 
ness" means here "deceitful riches;" that which 



WHAT WE POSSESS AND WHAT WE OWN. 247 

seems to be what it is not, professes to do more for 
ns tlian it can. 

If we are faithful in that which is another's, God 
will give us that which is our own. Fidelity in 
transient insignificant work leaves a heavenly savor 
in the soul. Fidelity is the root out of which 
good and great things grow. It does not seem much. 
We are only asked to be true to our engagements, to 
stand fast to our professions, to keep our word ; then 
we are trustworthy. That is what all can do, but 
how few do it ! What want of fidelity in common 
work ; how few men do their day labor as though 
God saw them ! How many can be trusted in trade 
not to take small advantages of the ignorance of 
the purchaser ? Here is where fidelity comes in. 
When we find a man who is faithful in these 
small things, we find one who is fit to be ruler 
over many things. This makes the sterling char- 
acter, the honorable citizen, the one on whom men 
depend and know that their trust will never be 
betrayed. These men are the salt of the earth, 
without whom society w T ould soon become corrupt 
and dissolve. 

Business life, wdrich is full of temptation to in- 
sincerity, has sometimes an opposite influence. It 
often educates men to fidelity. If the great major- 
ity of men did not usually keep their engagements, 
business could not be carried on. There is a code 
of business honor which to many educates to 
truth in other things. To such men, business is a 



248 E VERY-DAY RELIGION. 

religious education. When I travelled in Italy, I 
found that the common people, though they would 
take every advantage of one in a bargain, yet, the 
agreement being once made, would keep to it loy- 
ally. I have heard the same thing of the Arabs. 
The idea of fidelity to one's engagements is often 
found where we least expect it. It is a sort of 
sheet-anchor holding the soul to truth amid the 
wreck of many virtues. 

Fidelity in seeking for the truth, honesty in 
uttering it, leads to knowledge. The power of seek- 
ing for truth is what we possess, but when it gives 
us knowledge, that is something which we own. 
Life is not meant to be a perpetual seeking and 
never finding. We come at last, by faithfulness 
to the truth, to know God, duty, and immortality. 
There are some convictions which go down so deep 
into the human heart that they remain and cannot 
pass away. 

We begin by believing in God, but we come at last 
to know God. That belief in God which only rests 
on what we have heard and been told, or on specu- 
lation and argument, is liable to be disturbed and 
changed. We possess it, but do not own it. But 
if we are faithful to that belief, and live by it, it 
will grow at last into knowledge. If we live as we 
believe, we at last know. 

Jesus said, " Whosoever will do the will of God, 
shall know of the doctrine." We grow up by fidel- 
ity into knowledge. We do not acquire knowledge 



WHAT WE POSSESS AND WHAT WE OWN. 249 

by thinking, but by living ; and if we use well the 
little knowledge we have, we receive more. 

Consider the case of Laura Bridgman, a child 
blind, deaf, and dumb ; shut out from the world 
by having all the usual avenues of thought closed. 
One only sense remained, that of touch. But by 
the genius and fidelity of her teacher this one sense 
became a broad highway through which light came 
to her soul, by which love entered in and went 
out, by which she found friends, amusement, joy, 
work, thought. By this one sense of touch she 
came to the knowledge of God, to faith in him and 
in Christ, to a hope of an immortal heaven, where 
she will have her eyes and ears opened, and be ad- 
mitted into a full vision of God's world. 

Meantime, how many of us there are, to whom 
God has lent eyes and ears and tongue, who have 
not used them so as to get any real knowledge of 
him. We have eyes, and look on the glories of the 
world, on the beauty and grandeur of Nature, and 
do not see God in it. We have ears, and hear the 
music of the universe, and remain insensible to it. 
God speaks to us each day by the voices of affection, 
and our hearts remain cold and dead. Meantime, 
this poor woman, shut in the inner prison of a 
world perfectly silent and wholly dark, has come to 
see, and hear, and know the best truths that can 
be known. 

It is not so much opportunity as fidelity which 
conducts to the greatest results. The ships with 



250 EVERY-DAY RELIGION. 

which the Northmen discovered Iceland, Greenland, 
and the coast of Massachusetts were not much 
larger than our pilot boats. The apparatus with 
which Faraday made his discoveries was of the 
simplest sort. Ferguson became a great astron- 
omer by lying on his back in the sheep-pastures^ 
measuring the distances of the stars with beads 
strung on a thread. Thus fidelity in a little leads 
to knowledge of much. 

This year hundreds and perhaps thousands of 
people will go to Europe, to Colorado, to Califor- 
nia. They will see mountains, cathedrals, works 
of art, ruins ; but whether they gain any knowl- 
edge out of what they see will depend not only on 
their opportunity, but also on their fidelity. They 
may see all these things as we see things in our 
dreams, and bring away nothing. Meantime, the 
person who loves truth and Nature will go out into 
the fields close to his house, and there find wonders 
and beauties sufficient for the study of a lifetime. 
Every little brook which creeps through the meadow 
is full of wonders of life. Every cloud that drifts 
past, has lights and shadows more tender than any 
artist can copy. Every sunrise in New England is 
more full of wonder than the pyramids, — every 
sunset more magnificent than the Transfiguration. 
Why go to see the Bay of Naples, when we have 
not yet seen Boston harbor ? Why go to the Paris 
Exposition, when we have close to us manufacto- 
ries of all kinds, with the most curious machinery ? 



WHAT WE POSSESS AND WHAT WE OWN. 251 

If you wish to see one of the greatest wonders of 
modern times, go some night into the cellar under 
one of our newspaper offices, and observe the half- 
reasoning printing-press throwing off its tens of 
thousands of copies of the journal which is to be 
laid on your breakfast-table in the morning. He 
who faithfully notices what is close at hand is the 
man who gains knowledge, and not he who looks 
for it on the other side of the world. 

As with knowledge, so with love. The simple, 
natural affections are the steps by which we ascend 
to the largest love. Kindness in little things, a 
pleasant word when we can say it, a good-natured act 
when we can do it, — these are conditions by which 
we reach large generosities. These little opportu- 
nities come and go every day ; we possess them, but 
cannot keep them. But they may be used so as to 
leave behind what shall be always ours, — a habit 
of kindness, a temper of good-will, a disposition to 
see and say the best we can of human kind. 

The greatest soul and the largest heart that ever 
lived on earth had for friends some of the simplest 
men and women. How he loved those disciples, 
and loved them to the end, educating them by slow 
degrees to comprehend a little of his thoughts, 
hopes, and purposes ! Yet what a gulf remained 
between his mind and theirs ! He could not make 
them understand the spiritual nature of his king- 
dom, the probability of his death, the rising from 
the dead into a higher life. But still he loved them, 



252 E VERY-DAY RELIGION. 

— the unstable, impetuous Peter, the sceptical 
Thomas, the fiery-hearted John; Martha, Mary, 
Lazarus, Mary Magdalene. He loved these un- 
developed minds ; for his greatness enabled him 
to perceive in them the capacity which no others 
could discover, of becoming at last his apostles, 
missionaries, and martyrs. The wisdom of this 
world would have said that those ignorant fisher- 
men were the last persons to establish a religion 
for the civilized world. But he found in their 
present fidelity a guarantee of their future power. 
They were faithful in a few things, and could be- 
come rulers over many things. 

And what he beheld in them, God sees in us. 
We, also, are weak, ignorant, full of errors, faults, 
and sins. We have faults of temper, faults of char- 
acter ; we are careless, or selfish, or forgetful of our 
duties. But if we are trying to be faithful, if we 
are beoinnincr to do what is rio-ht, God finds in that 
small beginning a power which his grace will help 
to unfold into perfect truth and love. If we are 
faithful in that which is another's, he will give us 
that which is our own. 

It has been usual for preachers to speak of the 
temporal things which pass away as though they 
were therefore worthless. But they are of infinite 
worth if they are the means of reaching that which 
shall abide. If we can change time into eternity, 
wealth into generosity, thought into knowledge, op- 
portunities which are soon gone into faith, hope, 



WHAT WE POSSESS AND WHAT WE OWN. 253 

and love which abide, then riches, talents, and all 
outward visible things have a divine value. That 
which can become an infinite good is itself almost 
an infinite good. We will not, then, despise these 
things which God lends us because they are not yet 
our own. We will bless Him for the tranquil joys 
of every day, the simple affections of time, the com- 
mon every-day work of life, the springs and sum- 
mers which come and go, the talents we have and 
use, the business we transact, for all are parts of 
that Jacob's ladder which reaches from earth to 
heaven. 

Oh, my heart, learn to love God through his 
works ! Love the infinite truth and perfect beauty 
in the universe and in human lives, through the 
finite duties of each passing hour. Love all that is 
good here, and so love the infinite goodness here 
and beyond. Look away from darkness to light. 
Seek the best things in all God's children, by what- 
ever name they may be called. Eespect and love 
goodness, wherever it may be, and believe that all 
the goodness in thyself and in others must come 
down from the Supreme Goodness and lead back 
to Him. Turn away, my soul, from all things 
false, base, and mean ; rise and look up to the pure 
and perfect heaven of truth, which hangs its deep 
canopy of blue above us, unsoiled by the passing 
cloud ; the home of the eternal stars ; the highway 
of the majestic sun ; the emblem of a divine purity 
and an illimitable peace, 



XVII. 
WHAT WILL MAKE US GENEROUS? 



XVIL 

WHAT WILL MAKE US GENEROUS? 



i 



THINK I may assume that we all wish to be 
generous, for certainly no one would willingly 
be selfish. If I had treated of some other form of 
disinterested love ; if, for example, I had selected 
for my topic, " How can we make ourselves pious ? " 
or " How can we make ourselves philanthropic ? " 
the case would be different. I could not assume 
that we all desire to be pious, for piety has been 
connected in many minds with disagreeable asso- 
ciations. That which is called piety is sometimes 
gloomy and morose ; sometimes narrow, bigoted, 
sectarian, and intolerant ; sometimes, alas ! it is 
found in company with sharp bargains in business 
and mean habits of life. This, of course, is not real 
piety, for that is simply love to God and man, and 
cannot be gloomy, narrow, or mean. But since 
professional piety is sometimes associated in our 
minds witli these poor qualities, I will not use this 
word here, but take one unsoiled by such associa- 
tions. Besides, there are no pious people in Scrip- 

17 



258 EVERY-DAY RELIGION. 

ture. Pious is not a Bible word. The Bible saj^s 
"godly" and "holy," not "pious." And the only 
place where the noun " piety " appears, is where 
the Apostle says that widows had best show their 
piety at home in their own family. " Philanthropy " 
also is a word which has been a little discredited ; 
many people thinking of a "kind of professional phi- 
lanthropy which is not exactly loving and lovely, 
but mechanical. But no one, I think, has any dis- 
agreeable associations with the word " generosity ; " 
therefore I take that as my theme. 

What is generosity ? It is not merely giving 
to others what we possess. A person who gives 
only five cents may be generous in his bounty ; one 
who bestows five thousand dollars may not be 
so. When Mr. Bates presented his first fifty thou- 
sand dollars for our public library, he did a noble 
action, a wise action, and one which has resulted 
in a vast deal of good ; but we cannot with strict 
accuracy apply the term " generous " to it, for it 
cost him no self-denial, and he had money enough 
left. A man may be very liberal without being 
very generous. I do not wish to disparage such 
liberality, for it is not a very common virtue. I 
wish we had more of it. I wish we had more men 
and women willing so to use their wealth, and 
thus procure the greatest amount of good out of 
it every day for themselves and others ; to build 
for themselves a memorial in human lives benefited 
and blessed by such bounty. What mausoleum, 



WHAT WILL MAKE US GENEROUS? 259 

however splendid, can compare with the monu- 
ment which will long preserve the memory of the 
man who established the Lowell lectures in Boston ? 
Those lectures have elevated the whole tone of this 
community, have often given a new object in life, 
and inspired with the love of knowledge many a 
youthful mind. 

Nor is generosity that constitutional sympathy 
which takes an interest in persons who are near 
us, and warms to the latest tale of sorrow. Such a 
sentiment is indeed very lovely, and always brings 
comfort with it. The sympathy of others is a great 
consolation in trouble. But this may be only a 
sentiment, an emotion, which begins and ends with 
the hour. Generosity is more than that. It gives 
itself, its own thought, power, ability, love, to the 
good of others. It enters into their needs ; thinks 
for them ; remembers them when absent ; makes 
sacrifices willingly for their sake. It denies itself 
for others, and says nothing about its self-denial. 
It keeps no account of its sacrifices or of its bounty. 
Its joy is in giving ; it is only happy when mak- 
ing some one else happy. As it is the nature 
of the fish to swim, and of the bird to fly, so it 
is the nature of the generous man to give, hop- 
ing for nothing again. Generosity has something 
boundless, unlimited, infinite, in its quality. It is 
like the sun, which evermore pours out its abun- 
dant light and heat, without asking what becomes 
of them. Where does the sun obtain these stores 



260 EVERY-DAY RELIGION. 

of radiance and of fire ? No one knows. Science 
has never been able to answer the question, except 
by uncertain conjectures. Nor can one tell from 
what inexhaustible fountains the generous man ob- 
tains the perennial light which cheers life around 
him. He does not create it ; he merely lets it shine 
before men, so that others, seeing his good works, 
may glorify, not him, but his Father who is in 
heaven. 

How, it may be said, can there be such a 
thing as cultivating our generosity ? The essence 
of generosity is love, and we cannot create love 
by an effort. This is a difficulty which many feel. 
We know that we ought to love God with all our 
heart, and our neighbor as ourselves. But how 
can we make ourselves love from a sense of duty ? 
How can we love by a resolve of the will ? We 
can, by an effort, perform the outward action ; but 
how can we cause ourselves to take pleasure in 
doing good ? 

This objection is well founded. No one can love 
from a sense of duty, or by a direct effort. And 
yet we ought to love ; we ought to forget our- 
selves in generous actions. That is the paradox. 
We ought to do what we are unable to do. How 
are we to solve this difficulty ? 

Our answer is this : What we cannot do directly 
we may do indirectly ; what we cannot do at once, 
we may do by degrees ; what we cannot do by our- 
selves, we may do by the help of God and by the 



WHAT WILL MAKE US GENEROUS? 261 

influences lie sends. If he makes it a duty to love 
•him and to love others, we may be sure there is 
some way by which we can do it. 

What a dreadful thing it is not to love ! The 
unloving man* lives utterly alone ; he comes into 
union with none of his race. He is among them, 
but not of them. Always there is some barrier 
between his heart and theirs ; there is no approach, 
no contact. His soul is lonely, in a dreary solitude. 
What a hell of despair is in the word " egotism " ! 
The man who is an egotist, who is always thinking 
of himself, is dead while he lives. There is no joy, 
no sunshine, in his heart. All there is icy cold. 
Only when we love we really live. We may say, 
in one word, " Love is heaven, and selfishness is 
hell, here and hereafter." 

That we only really live while we love some- 
thing outside of ourselves — while we are in com- 
munion with Nature, truth, man, God — is a fact 
which philosophy recognizes no less than religion. 
The self-absorbed man is only half alive. He 
who is always thinking of himself, his good quali- 
ties and merits, his rights and his wrongs, his sue- 
cesses and failures ; he who is seeking for praise, 
who thinks of his reputation, who watches his own 
shadow, is really losing the bread of life, and being 
starved at the centre of his soul. The ancients 
fabled that Narcissus by always looking at himself 
in a spring, and admiring his own beauty 3 pined 
away and died. The moral is obvious. 



262 E VERY-DAY RELIGION. 

Whatever takes us out of ourselves in a genuine 
interest in God's great world around us is a source 
of new and generous life. A hearty devotion to 
others is generosity. 

The first way, then, to make ourselves generous 
is to look at the good in things about us. This is 
one great advantage of education. True education 
is not that which loads the memory with dead facts, 
but the discipline which makes all truth interest- 
ing. The moment we are interested in any truth 
we forget ourselves. Even Byron, the great egotist 
of modern times, forgot himself when he thought of 
the solemn desolation of Rome. 

A liberal education is that which frees a man 
from himself. " Ye shall know the truth, and the 
truth shall make you free." No one is so much a 
slave as the man who is tied by his own appetites, 
ambitions, vanities, conceit. 

" Stone walls do not a prison make, 

Nor iron bars a cage ; 
Minds innocent and quiet take 

That for an hermitage. 
If I have freedom in my love, 

And in my thoughts am free, 
Angels alone that soar above, 

Enjoy such liberty." 

I have heard of a person who in a great and over- 
mastering sorrow sought comfort in the study of 
mathematics. Mr. Emerson commends the sight 
of the everlasting stars in their majestic stability to 



WHAT WILL MAKE US GENEROUS? 263 

tranquillize the turbulent spirit. The beauty of 
nature takes us out of ourselves, and soothes the 
soul with the presence of a divine beauty. Who 
that in our New England Octobers has seen the 
glory of the woods, their golden yellows, their rich 
crimson, the contrast of the deep-blue heaven with 
the gorgeous coloring of the earth, but has been 
lifted above himself ? Dr. Channing was once driv- 
ing with a lady by the shore of the ocean. The 
lady said, " Oh, Dr. Channing, how small we seem 
in view of all this ! " Dr. Channing replied, " When 
I am in such a presence as this I do not think of 
myself at all ! " This is the real office of Nature, to 
free us from all small egotism by bringing us into 
communion with infinite beauty and wisdom. 

But a still better consolation in our sorrow comes 
to us when we find something to do for others. To 
do any good work enlarges the heart. Our own 
misfortunes sometimes lead us to sympathize with 
others as we could not do before we had ourselves 
suffered. So Wordsworth says : — 

" A deep distress has humanized my soul." 

When we are able to do good to any one we begin 
to love him. We like those who are kind to us, 
but we like better those to whom we are kind. 
Our own hearts will be enlarged when we each 
clay endeavor to make some one else happier. This 
is the secret of inward peace. Jesus went about 
doing good. He did not stay at home and wait till 



264 E VERY-DAY RELIGION. 

some one asked for help, for lie came to seek, as well 
as save, those who needed aid. His kindness was 
active, not passive. He took the initiative. Doing 
good is an excellent way of gaining good. When 
you wait till you are asked before you help any 
one, you are thrown into a condition of resistance. 
When you give, how often it is done " grudgingly 
and by necessity " ! But .God loves a cheerful 
giver ; and so do men love a cheerful giver, one 
whose heart goes with his hand. 

This means that we should be not only generous 
in action, but also generous in thought ; that we 
should take the trouble to think about others, to 
enter into their state of mind, to learn how to 
rejoice with those who rejoice, and to weep with 
those who weep. How thankful we are to those 
who try to understand us ; who enter lovingly into 
our state of mind ; who divine the secret of our 
capabilities and defects ; who encourage us to do 
better, and show us what Ave are able to accomplish ! 
There are people who only think about themselves ; 
but, thank God, there are also those in the world 
who think about others, — not to find fault, not to 
censure and condemn, but to comfort, encourage, 
and strengthen. 

Such persons we have all known. I was once 
preaching in a small town in Central Xew York, 
and I described in my sermon a good woman whom 
I had once known in a distant State. She was the 
wise friend and helper of all in the town who were 



WHAT WILL MAKE US GENEROUS? 265 

in any trouble or want. Young and old went to 
her with their difficulties, sure of finding some help. 
Her very presence seemed to bring sunlight, she 
lived in such an atmosphere of serene wisdom and 
goodness. She was a mother in Israel, spending 
her life in thinking of others. If any were lonely 
and neglected, she noticed their solitude, and con- 
trived some way of bringing them into the society 
they needed. If any youth or maiden seemed in 
danger of being misled by foolish companions, she 
ingeniously arranged some plan for counteracting 
these snares, and interesting them in better things. 
And why should there not be ingenuity and con- 
trivance for good ends as well as for evil ones ? 
When Jesus told the story of the unjust steward, 
he pointed the moral by saying that the children 
of this world are in their generation wiser than the 
children of light. Good people are too often satis- 
fied with having good intentions, and they let the 
result take care of itself. But Jesus said, " Be 
wise as serpents ; " and Paul said, " Do not fight as 
one who beats the air." So this good woman of 
whom I spoke hit on ingenious expedients for 
helping her friends and neighbors. And after I 
had finished this description, a gentleman living 
near the place came to me and said, " I was not 
aware that you ever knew our good Miss Mappa, 
but you described her exactly." I had not known 
her, and I was making a portrait of another per- 
son in a distant place ; but I found there were 



266 E VERY-DAY RELIGION. 

two good women of the kind ; and if two, why 

not twenty ? why not many more ? Such people, 
wherever they may be found, are in their own 
homes and neighborhood wells of refreshment to 
the weary and forlorn, full of heavenly intelli- 
gence, charitable ingenuity, skilful devices for doing 
good. 

Let us put our mind into some work by which 
those about us would be made better and happier. 
If every day we took the trouble of thinking about 
the best interests of others, we should find ourselves 
growing in generosity. A man in the Boston 
Post-Office once said to me : " I have not a great 
deal to spend in charity, and I have considered 
how I could make it go furthest. Noticing how 
many persons lose their letters by the postage 
being unpaid or insufficiently paid, I make my 
charity consist in paying the postage on such let- 
ters and sending them to their address. Thus by 
paying one or two cents I may sometimes keep an 
important communication from going to the Dead 
Letter Office. Some poor mother, perhaps, gets the 
letter from her son which she would otherwise 
lose." I thought this a piece of benevolent con- 
trivance worth imitating. I had another friend 
who habitually sent newspapers such as we read 
and throw away, to persons in different parts of 
the country, who were made happy by receiving 
them. He had a list of young men and women 
who had gone from New England to work or teach, 



WHAT WILL MAKE US GENEROUS? 267 

ill Tennessee or Colorado, and he selected such jour- 
nals as he thought would help them — to the teach- 
ers, some journal of education ; to the Episcopalian 
or Baptist young woman, some paper of her own 
denomination. This is what Jesus meant by the 
wisdom of the serpent, — to think about the best 
way of being useful, and to put one's mind into it. 

It is not by doing some one important thing at 
long intervals that we become generous, but by 
practising small acts of generosity every day. Many 
small transgressions make the habit of evil ; many 
small words or acts of kindness create the habit of 
goodness. Action and reaction are equal in morals 
as well as in physics. Do a kind action, and it 
makes you feel kindly. Let us have 

" A sense of an earnest will 
To help the lowly living, 
And a terrible heart-thrill 

When we have no power of giving. 
An arm of aid to the weak, 

A friendly hand to the friendless, 
Kind words — so short to speak — 
But whose echo is endless. 
The world is wide, these things are small, 
They may be nothing, but they are all." 

Wordsworth says that the largest portion of a good 
man's life consists in his "little, nameless, unre- 
membered acts of kindness and of love." It is not 
the amount we do, but the spirit in which we act, 
that is the important matter. 



268 EYERY-DAY RELIGION. 

And this spirit comes to us from on high. Ee- 
ligion consists in looking to the divine beauty and 
generosity which is above us. The cynical man 
looks down with contempt on what he thinks below 
himself. The religious man looks up with adora- 
tion to higher and nobler generosity in man and in 
God, and so he grows into the likeness of what he 
contemplates. This is the way in which Paul de- 
scribes the influence of Jesus on the soul. He tells 
us that the goodness of Jesus is a kind of mirror 
in which we see the goodness of God, and that the 
more we look into that mirror, the more we become 
like Christ and God. "We all, with open face, 
beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are 
changed into the same image, from glory to greater 
glory, even as by the spirit of the Lord." That is 
another way of becoming generous, — by associating 
with generous people, contemplating noble lives, 
beholding the generosity of Christ and the bounty 
of God, and so imbibing something of that spirit. 

In order to enter heaven hereafter we must en- 
ter heaven here ; and heaven is the condition of 
a generous soul. I am o-lad to see men of all de- 
nominations beginning to protest against the notion 
that Christianity consists in thinking how to save 
our soul from a future outward hell into a future 
outward heaven. One may be called Orthodox 
and another Unitarian, but these old lines are 
becoming a good deal blurred. They are fading 
out. It is encouraging to see so many taking 



WHAT WILL MAKE US GENEROUS? 269 

ground against the low ancl unworthy notion which 
makes of religion a talisman or charm by which 
to escape from the vengeance of God. It is time 
we put aside such pagan conceptions of the Deity. 
We are converted — so says Jesus — when we be- 
come as little children, laying away our pride and 
conceit, our egotism and selfish worldly aims. Then 
the love of God enters our hearts. And this new 
life is that which is always coming, not that which 
came lono* asjo. Be truthful, honest, kind, and 
generous to-day, and trust God to take care of 
your soul to-morrow. Heaven is here, or it is no- 
where. 1 should not say to a man, " Be religious, 
for you may die to-morrow," but rather, " Learn to 
love God and man, for you have to live to-day." 
We may enter heaven any moment by the eternally 
open doorway of faith, hope, and love. Trust in 
God as infinite goodness. Hope that he will make 
you altogether generous, pure, true, and good ; and 
go out of yourself in loving thoughts for others, 
loving actions of good-will, loving words of sym- 
pathy. Be sure that the divine life is ready to be 
shed abroad in your heart this very hour. God's 
love is nearer to you than anything else in time 
or eternity. 



XVIII. 
POWER AND AIM. 



XVIXL 
POWER AND AIM. 



THMEESON somewhere tells us that " power 
-*-^ and aim are the two halves of human 
felicity." There is a profound wisdom in this 
saying. 

Power, without aim, leads nowhere, and tends to 
nullity. Aim without power does not accomplish 
what it proposes, and thus falls into discouragement, 
which is also nullity. Each, by itself, journeys to- 
ward nothingness. Together, they accomplish the 
wonders of time and eternity. 

When, however, we speak of any grown-up hu- 
man beings without an aim, we mean without one 
which is permanent and adequate. Every one, or 
nearly every one, has some purpose in view, some 
end in sight. Except the Neapolitan lazzaroni 
dozing on the shore of the Bay of Naples, or the 
dreaming poets, most persons are chasing some- 
thing all day long, — pleasure, gain, power, distinc- 
tion. But these purposes are not always blessed 
ones ; they do not make a part of human felicity. 
They are well enough for a time, but not satisfactory 

18 



274 E VERY-BAY RELIGION. 

for a life. In the aim of life there should be some- 
thing infinite, eternal; something carrying with it 
a touch of immortality and heaven. This infinite 
quality, with its hidden charm, belongs to duty, to 
love, to truth. This is the indivisible trinity to 
which all of life must tend in order to have any 
permanent interest or value. To do right because 
right is true and lovely ; to seek truth in order that 
we may put it into action, and so help others ; to 
be wisely generous, practically sympathetic, — this 
is the great aim which gives the soul an infinite 
content. 

Some persons, however, have power without aim. 
Little children begin life so. They put forth in- 
exhaustible energy in all directions. They are not 
meant to be tied to any one thing. Their supply of 
activity is so prodigious that they learn by every- 
thing they see and touch. They are making ex- 
periments all day long. Nature welcomes them into 
her friendly arms, and opens her wonderful pages 
for their delight and instruction. How sad to see 
the little things taken from their play-room and 
play-ground, where they learn at every moment, 
and chained to a bench or a book, where they learn 
next to nothing ! On the other hand, it is doubt- 
less inconvenient to have these restless little fingers 
scattering your work, overturning your furniture, 
breaking your ornaments, tearing leaves from your 
books. The golden mean is to be found in that 
benign discovery of modern thought, the Kinder- 



POWER AND AIM. 275 

garten ; or, if that is not accessible, then we must 
make the nursery or primary school as much like a 
Kindergarten as we can. Give the children plenty 
to do in a natural way, and do not try to hold them 
too soon to a fixed purpose. They are lovely illus- 
trations of power without aim. 

But as soon as the children begin to grow up, 
this is no longer a childlike state, but a childish 
one. More and more of aim and purpose ought to 
come in, does come in, — outwardly imposed at first, 
that it may be self-imposed afterward. AVith chil- 
dren amusement and instruction go naturally to- 
gether, amusement carrying with it instruction. 
Not so afterward. The young man or young 
woman, whose aim is amusement, grows weary. 
Amusement is not an adequate aim for a grown 
person. The novels of social life, which represent 
pretty accurately human affairs, show us men and 
women of pleasure as excessively weary ; in fact, 
tired of life almost before they have begun to live. 
This is because their aim is not adequate to their 
power. It does not draw out their force ; so they 
become vapid even to themselves. In this country 
we have been hitherto saved from this shallow class, 
which belongs to the wealthy capitals of Europe. 
It is the habit here for all men, rich and poor, to 
do some useful work. I hope we shall not soon 
have among us many of those imitators of foreign 
manners, who spend their time in dressing, looking 
out of the windows of club-houses, getting up an 



276 EVERY-DAY RELIGION. 

imaginary fox-hunt, or driving, at much expense 
and with some difficulty, a useless four-in-hand 
stage-coach. 

And yet, even among ourselves, how much wasted 
power there is, — misdirected power ; power spent 
on inadequate aims, which might accomplish so 
much in nobler ways ! 

I am not one of those who think that money- 
making in itself is a bad thing. It is a good 
thing, for by its means come to society its outward 
improvements and opportunities. It is the love of 
money which is the root of evil, not money itself, 
nor money-making. But when the Apostle said, 
" The love of money is the root of all evil," I think 
he hardly exaggerated. To make money in order 
to use it, as the banker Peabody used his money, 
as Peter Cooper used his, and as so many other 
rich men and women have done and are doing, this 
is not " the love of money," it is the love of doing 
good. What large subscriptions and donations are 
being made every day in Boston for colleges here 
and in every other State of the Union ; for the 
Indians in the Territories; the colored people in 
North Carolina and Georgia ; for kindergartens, 
hospitals, missions, asylums ! I happen to know 
of three or four great subscriptions going on at 
this moment, side by side, in our city. Those who 
have money and use it, — who use it for good ends, 
— are not those who love it. With them, power 
and aim are properly united. 



POWER AND AIM. 277 

We read in the newspapers every day the stories 
of men who, after long years of honest labor, have 
wrecked their character and brought untold misery 
to their homes by making haste to be rich. They 
have speculated with funds not their own, and lost 
them. Oh! they did not mean to lose; no doubt 
they meant to gain and to return the borrowed 
funds, — for they were only borrowed, not stolen. 
"He only steals," say they, "who takes what he 
does not mean to return." This is the new defini- 
tion which is to replace the old one, " He steals 
who takes without leave what does not belong to 
him." It is not, therefore, rich people only who 
suffer from the love of money. The poor man who 
trusts in money, who means to be rich any how 
and in any way; who leaves his honest business 
to speculate ; who grumbles and is angry beca/use 
others accumulate faster than he, — this man, with- 
out a dollar in his pocket, loves money more than 
Peter Cooper did with his millions. 

" Great powers and low aims " might be written 
as an epitaph on the tomb of many eminent public 
men and leading politicians. Their object is to 
rise, to become more distinguished, get a better 
place, make themselves popular, talk plausibly on 
either side of the question, fill their pockets with 
the people's money. Think of such men, and then 
of a statesman like Burke, a champion of freedom 
like Erskine, a patriot like Gambetta, a hero like 
Garibaldi, a leader like Kossuth. Think of our 



278 EVERY-DAY RELIGION. 

own statesmen., — Jefferson, John Quincy Adams, 
Hamilton, Webster, Sumner, — and then turn to 
the demagogues whose only purpose is to deceive 
the people by adroit cunning and amusing tricks ; 
who sneer at reform, and imagine the salvation of 
the country to depend on the election of a popular 
or influential politician. A great training, splendid 
ability, and insignificant objects, — in this sentence 
is pronounced the decay and fall of many a repu- 
tation of our time. Only those who exert their 
powers for the good of the country will be remem- 
bered twenty years after death. Men of low aims, 
however brilliant, are often forgotten even in their 
lifetime. 

An eminent warning of the nullity of vast powers 
with no sufficient aim is to be found in the case 
of the first Napoleon. Xo other man of such 
genius has appeared in our century. His faculties of 
observation, judgment, invention, divination, and his 
mental grasp, were almost preternatural. "When 
planning a campaign, he saw the possibilities before 
him, the events which would occur, as other men 
see them after they have happened. In that one 
brain there was a power which more than out- 
weighed the generalship and statesmanship of the 
rest of Europe. The " Code Napoleon " shows what 
he might have effected had he devoted himself 
to the improvement of France, the education of 
its people, the development of good institutions. 
Had he done this he misdit have carried forward 



POWER AND AIM. 279 

the civilization of Europe a hundred years, laid the 
foundation of a permanent peace among nations, 
shown how poverty, crime, intemperance, idleness 
could be reformed and cured. His genius was ade- 
quate to it all. Instead, he adopted the vulgar 
aim of a commonplace conqueror like Charles XII. 
or Frederick the Great, and his whole life-work 
passed out of sight in a single generation. 

Another example of great mental power com- 
bined with low aims is that of Lord Byron. His 
poetic genius surpasses that of any other writer 
since the time of Milton. He joined with a mirac- 
ulous command of language and control of verse 
the most tender and noble insight into the beauty 
of Nature and the experiences of life. His poetry 
was like the fountain of Helicon breaking afresh 
from the soil. But this majestic and lovely lan- 
guage and imagery is wasted on thoughts empty of 
value, or filled with a shallow scepticism. Byron 
believed in nothing, and therefore had nothing to 
say. His fame was like the Northern lights, which 
lighten up half of the heavens with columns of 
rosy fire and darting coruscations, but disappear 
when at dawn the true aurora arrives. But he 
who, like Milton, Wordsworth, Dante, lias a high 
purpose, together with a great poetic fancy, illumi- 
nates long periods with his beneficent light. 

Such is power without aim. What is aim with- 
out power ? Alas ! we see also examples enough of 
this; of those who choose objects for which they 



280 E VERY-DAY RELIGION. 

are inadequate. Poets who do not know how to 
sing ; literary people who cannot write. There are 
reformers who propose to save the world, but who 
have not force enough in them to reform them- 
selves. There are many loud-voiced prophets of a 
new era who come before us professing to preach 
some new and everlasting gospel, but are not able 
to make themselves intelligible. They have not 
power even to explain what they mean, much less 
to convince men of the truth of what they say. 

The beginning of the natural life in little children 
shows us power without an adequate aim. The 
beginning of the spiritual life in older persons often 
presents the opposite experience, — that of aim 
without adequate power. As soon as one endeav- 
ors seriously to do his duty, to love God and man, 
to follow Christ, to become a good man ; that is, as 
soon as he adopts a truly divine and heavenly aim 
of living, he finds his powers are not equal to it. 
•'The spirit is willing, the flesh is weak." He means 
to do right, and does wrong. He makes good reso- 
lutions, and presently breaks them. "I see the 
better way, and approve it," said the Latin poet, 
" but I follow the worse." " I see then that when I 
would do good evil is present with me," responds 
the Jewish apostle. " I believe, O Cyrus," cried the 
Asiatic Araspes, "that I have two souls. When 
the good one prevails, it does noble things ; when 
the bad one conquers, evil ones." Thus from vari- 
ous races of mankind comes the declaration of how 



POWER AND AIM. 281 

hard it is to keep up to the point of a high purpose, 
even when we have reached it. How easy to step 
backward ; how easy to forget our good intentions ! 

What, then, shall we do about it ? One of two 
things. Our power is not equal to our aim. That 
is the difficulty. We can then either let down our 
aim till it becomes equal to our power, or raise our 
power till it is equal to the aim. 

The first method is that of numbeiless persons. 
When they find that " old Adam is too strong for 
young Melanchthon," they say, " Be not righteous 
overmuch ; why shouldst thou destroy thyself ? Do 
not try to be better than others. If one is as good 
as the average, that is enough." This way of think- 
ing kills aspiration, hope, generous endeavor. We 
yield to the current and drift downward. The en- 
thusiastic boy hardens into the worldly man. He 
laughs at the dreams of his youth. He sinks into 
habit, routine, and self-indulgence. That, I think, 
is not the best way out of the difficulty. 

But how we reverence the man and the woman 
who take the other way. These are they who do 
not forget the dreams of their youth, — who are 
always advancing, always looking for something 
better and higher. As they grow old, the weight of 
years and cares is not heavier, but lighter. They 
take more cheerful, more hopeful views of the 
world's future. They grow more generous, more 
faithful, more tender, more true. Need I remind 
you of these good spirits ? They are with us and 



282 EVERY-DAY RELIGION. 

around us. They have power and aim both, — the 
two halves of human felicity. Their power is more 
full, their aim more sure. Emerson himself was 
one of these, and so was Longfellow. Both aimed at 
some divine truth, some heavenly beauty, a larger 
communion, a loftier life. And both had power to 
the last, to move and sway, to influence and attract, 
to lift others around them to a higher faith. 

More than any other who ever lived, Jesus joined 
a perfect aim with a fulness of power. His life was 
devoted to help and save mankind from the lowest 
evils, and to raise the world to the highest plane. 
He had power from God to do this. God gave him 
the spirit without measure, and the result was a 
transformed humanity. 

So the apostle Paul united power and aim. His 
life, also, was spent in incessant labors to spread 
the gospel of truth and love. And he did it with 
such power that he saw Christianity planted in 
Europe, and a religion begun there which would 
unite many races and nations in a common faith. 

These, you may say, are men of genius, men of 
inspiration, exceptional men. But do you not know 
others, by no means exceptional, not great in the 
world's eye, but whose lives are given to good 
things ? These are the simple, unpretending follow- 
ers of Christ. They make no profession. They do 
not talk of their sacrifices ; they find a pure joy in 
doing good. Their aim in life has become a part of 
themselves. They find it more blessed to give than 



POWER AND AIM. 283 

to receive. Their joy is in doing something, each 
day, kindly, helpful, sympathetic. And because 
they walk in love, they walk steadily and with an 
increasing power. 

What is the secret of this continuous, uninter- 
rupted goodness ? It is faith, which works by love. 
It believes and trusts in the words of Jesus. " We 
are saved by faith," cried the Apostle, and it is still 
true that we are saved by faith. It is the trust 
that when God gives us a duty he will give us the 
power to do it. It is the trust that if we live in 
the spirit, we shall walk in the spirit ; that is, if 
we surround ourselves with an atmosphere of good 
thoughts and purposes, we shall have power to 
carrv them out into action. Jesus came to brino* 
hope to the world. He came to teach us to feel 
ourselves little children in the universal arms of a 
divine compassion. He inspired this confidence in 
his disciples. They believed that God would give 
them all the power they needed while they trusted 
in him. And so they had it; and so we have it, 
when we also trust in God. It is only in our hours 
of doubt and despondency that we are weak. We 
think of the dear Christ, our Master, and look 
up, and God revives his work in the midst of the 
years. 

When our purpose is to give, — to acquire 
things, not in order to keep them selfishly, but to 
communicate freely, — then to give is a joy. It is 
no longer a difficult thing to keep to this end ; it 



284 E VERY-DAY RELIGION. 

is never difficult to do what is pleasant. We may 
forget our intention, we may sink back into in- 
dolence or wilfulness ; but when we look into our- 
selves we see that we have no peace within. Once 
more we realize that we belong to God and to 
Christ; that we are fellow- workers with Jesus; 
that he is here by our side, and that there can be 
nothing so lovely as to labor with him. Then the 
good aim comes back, and we know that power will 
come too. 

When we hesitate before a task because it is 
difficult, and adjourn its performance, and begin to 
excuse ourselves, and say, " At a more convenient 
season I will begin it," we grow weak, and no such 
convenient season comes. But when we say, " Here 
is an opportunity of doing some good ; I do not 
know how, but God is with me; he can help me! 
he can give me power and open the way," — then 
how often the way is open ; some good influence 
comes to help us. The difficulties disappear. The 
right words are given us. What seemed so hard is 
easy and pleasant. We discover that it is as true 
now as it w T as twenty-five centuries ago, that " those 
who wait on the Lord shall renew their strength." 

There is nothing formal about this sort of re- 
ligion. It has nothing to do with creeds or ritual. 
It is a simple conviction that the law of the spirit of 
life is as Jesus said ; that it is more blessed to give 
than to receive; that those who exalt themselves 
shall be abased, and those who humble themselves 



POWER AND AIM. 285 

shall be exalted ; that all things work together for 
good to them that love God; and that with this aim 
before us, power will come to us. So we are afraid 
of nothing here or hereafter. We feel safe in the 
protection of infinite love. 

In religion, power and aim are the two halves 
of goodness. The man who aims at goodness, but 
never succeeds, is not a good man. The powerful 
preacher, the great exhorter, the self-denying monk, 
who yet has not the spirit of Christ, is none of 
his. " Though I speak with the tongue of men 
and angels, and have not love, I am as sounding 
brass and .a tinkling cymbal." The aim in Chris- 
tianity is love ; the power is faith. Those who seek 
to escape from selfishness and wilfulness into a 
large, honest, joyful generosity, must join with that 
a steadfast trust in the ever-present love. Then 
they have power. To doubt, to hesitate, to post- 
pone, is to lose the occasion. Walk in faith toward 
love. Then you have the power and the aim to- 
gether. Look beyond the things seen into the 
world of eternal realities, and put your trust in 
those, — in that eternal truth, eternal goodness, eter- 
nal wisdom, which enfolds all that seems weak, and 
surrounds all that seems low and evil. Trust in 
this, and power comes to you. So, the aim and the 
power being in harmony, there arrive joy and peace, 
hope and satisfaction. 



XIX. 
VIS INERTIA IN NATURE AND LIFE. 



XIX. 

VIS INERTIA IN NATURE AND LIFE. 



TT happened to me, once, to be invited to visit 
■*■ one of the vaults filled with those large safes 
which are used in banks and elsewhere. I noticed 
the heavy steel doors by which they are closed and 
secured, and took hold of one of these doors and 
tried to move it. I had to exert a good deal of 
force, and even then I only succeeded in causing 
it to move quite slowly. But when I attempted to 
stop this motion, I found it equally difficult to 
do so. Though the heavy door was going very 
slowly, it required a considerable muscular effort to 
check its progress. I thus perceived that it takes 
as much power to stop such motion as it does to 
becnn it. 

This is a simple illustration of what physical 
science has called the vis inertice, or inert force. 
Sir Isaac Newton defined " inertia, or the innate 
force of matter," as " the power of resistance by 
which every material body endeavors to persevere 
in its present state, whether of rest, or of motion 
in a straight line." " But a body," he adds, " exerts 

19 



290 EVERY-DAY RELIGION. 

this force only when another force, acting on it, 
endeavors to change its condition." Newton also 
adds that this may be called " vis inertia, or force 
of inactivity," and that it really means the inac- 
tivity of the mass of matter. 

But if it means inactivity, how can it be called 
" a force " ? Is not " inert force " a contradiction 
in terms ? It seems to be not force, but a power 
of retaining force. Inertia is the great storehouse 
of the forces of nature, and prevents their dissipa- 
tion and loss. 

If it were not for this power of inertia, the order 
of the universe could not be maintained. For 
without such a provision we could not rely on the 
continuity of the powers of gravity, magnetism, 
chemical action ; there would be no guarantee for 
the movements of the planets in their orbits, for 
the return of day and night, summer and winter, 
for the growth of plants, the life of animals. " Con- 
servation of force" is, in the last analysis, this 
mysterious law of inertia. The same law which 
governed the motion of the heavy steel door of the 
safe retains the sun and the stars in their places. 

But this law of inertia, or " inert force," finds 
other applications and illustrations in the intellect- 
ual and moral world. There is a law of inertia in 
thought, which is the " conservation of intellectual 
force." It means that all real thought, all insight 
of truth, is a permanent possession, and cannot be 
lost. It may change its form, but it cannot be 



VIS INERTIA IN NATURE AND LIFE. 291 

destroyed. Bryant says of truth that " the eternal 
years of God are hers." Emerson tells us that 

" One accent of the Holy Ghost 
The heedless world has never lost." 

We are forever saying that " truth is mighty, and 
must prevail." This is one great hope for mankind, 
that every new truth, when once recognized, must 
enter into the life of the world, and contribute to 
its progress. 

But let us remember that the same law which 
preserves truth once attained makes the difficulty 
in its first reception. Eeformers are apt to be 
bitter against conservatives, and call them bigots 
because they resist so obstinately the new light. 
But the same inertia which makes it hard to move 
the steel door keeps it in motion after it has once 
begun to move. If truth were easy to receive, it 
would be easy to lose it again. This is a lesson 
which reformers are slow to learn ; but they need 
it, in order to be patient and just to their oppo- 
nents, and candid in their judgments. We must 
be willing to grant that the same love of truth 
which moves the reformer is the motive which 
refuses to yield easily or suddenly to his arguments. 
It is best that it should be so. 

We may have some favorite measure which seems 
to us to contain the secret of all progress. It is the 
movement the time demands. It is perhaps the 
abolition of slavery, or of war, or of intemperance ; 



292 E VERY-DAY RELIGION. 

it is woman suffrage, free trade, civil service re- 
form, a broader Christian faith, a rational Chris- 
tianity. We cannot see why men do not accept 
our belief, and accept it now. We wish to have 
it embodied at once in the law of the land or in 
the creeds of the church. It seems so true and 
right and necessary that we think it intolerable not 
to have it at once received by mankind. 

It is the law of inertia which stands in our way, 
and that is a most useful and beneficent law. It 
means that a vast amount of effort must be made to 
convince and convert men, before you can embody 
truth in institutions and laws. It means that the peo- 
ple must be educated to believe in the reform, other- 
wise it is of no use to enact it as a law. Passing a 
vote will not answer. Contriving to get a bare ma- 
jority will not answer. Politicians want to carry the 
next election, and to carry it by any means, good or 
bad. But reformers have a much more difficult and 
important work. It is to change the convictions of 
the people, so that when the reform arrives it may 
come to stay. The same vis inertim which resisted 
it will then operate to maintain it. Slavery and 
its evils were discussed for thirty years, and then 
those evils had to be still more fully shown by the 
great rebellion and secession, before the people of 
the United States could be educated to the point of 
abolishing that pernicious institution. Kow often 
during those weary years the hearts of the anti- 
slavery reformers were chilled by dull opposition, 



VIS INERTIA IN NATURE AND LIFE. 293 

and their hopes cruelly disappointed ! ' Like the 
souls under the throne, they cried, " How long, O 
Lord, how long ! " But the result of it was that at 
last the whole people were brought to see that this 
institution cumbered the ground, and must be swept 
away. And so it went, never to return. Of all 
those who defended it as right and Christian, not 
one remains. No one, anywhere, wishes to have it 
back. None are so poor as to do it reverence. 

Custom and imitation make a part of the vis 
inertice in morals. People do things because they 
have been accustomed to do them, and because others 
do them. Fifty years ago the Peace societies began 
to demonstrate the evils of war. More than thirty 
years ago I went, as a delegate from a church, to a 
Peace convention held in Paris, over which Yictor 
Hugo presided, the object of which was to put an 
end to all war. To settle international disputes we 
proposed to have what Tennyson calls 

" The Parliament of Man, the Federation of the World." 

All international quarrels were to be settled by 
laws passed by a Congress of Nations, and each 
case was to be decided under those laws by a High 
Court of Nations. We proposed, in fact, to apply to 
the States of Europe the principles of the American 
Union. Alas ! since then, how many wars have 
sent desolation over the world ! Every one admits 
the evil of war, but the power of custom is still too 
strong to be conquered. It seems now as if war 



294 E VERY-DAY RELIGION. 

would come to an end by the intolerable magni- 
tude of its burdens. The nations of Europe stagger 
under the weight of their enormous standing armies. 
The weapons of destruction are becoming so terrible 
that wars have become very short. If they contin- 
ued Ion o'er, all the combatants would be destroyed. 
So it is that things must sometimes grow worse 
before they can be better. But when the time 
comes that some other way of settling disputes shall 
be found, wars will be abolished forever among 
civilized nations, — abolished never to return. The 
powerful vis inertice which has maintained them so 
long will act then with equal force to prevent them 
from ever coming back. The long delay will not 
have been lost, which was gradually educating the 
human mind to find a better method. 

The same law of inertia applies to the develop- 
ment of character, to the correction of bad habits, 
to the formation of good ones. Young people are 
apt to suppose that they can, whenever they choose, 
leave off a wrong habit and form a right one, by 
merely taking a resolution. They discover that 
they have faults, and honestly desire to correct 
them. A young girl sees that she has a quick 
temper, that she is impatient, and she determines 
that she will henceforth never use a hasty or angry 
word. Having made this good resolution, she finds 
before the day is over that she has fallen into the 
same ill-temper as before, and said the same unkind 
things. So it is with other bad habits, — vanity, 



VTS INERTIJE IN NATURE AND LIFE. 295 

untruth, self-indulgence, selfishness, passion. We 
resolve to break away from them, but the resolution 
has no apparent effect. Then we say, " It is of no 
use. I have tried in vain. I have resolved, and I 
have not been able to keep my resolution." 

To a person who speaks thus I should say, " It is 
not only often true that you cannot conquer a bad 
habit by a resolution, but it is a good thing that 
you cannot do so. If a bad habit could be overcome 
in a moment by a single resolution, a good habit 
might be lost in a moment. If a man could change 
his character by a determination, that would show 
he had no character to change. But this does not 
prove that a resolution to do right is useless. A 
right purpose, a good determination, is an important 
step ; it places us in the right direction." 

The power of inertia in morals makes it difficult 
to begin, but easy to go on. The harder it is at 
first to form a good habit, the more sure we are 
that, when formed, it will last. The real difficulty 
is in the beginning. As we go on we acquire 
more power to keep in the right way. If the vis 
inertias in Nature is a good thing, being really an 
outcome of the larger law which preserves all the 
forces of the universe, why is not the vis inertiw 
of the soul a good thing ? Instead of being dis- 
couraged because it is hard to build up good habits 
and a good character, we ought to be thankful for 
this, as a sure evidence that when formed they will 
last. 



296 EVERY-DAY RELIGION. 

What theologians have called natural depravity 
is, I suppose, only the vis inertice of the soul, the 
inert force waiting to be roused and turned in the 
right direction. The more innate power in any 
soul to do right, the greater is often the difficulty in 
its first efforts. That is why we so often read in the 
biographies of great saints, like Saint Augustine or 
Saint Francis of Assisi, that their early life showed 
no trace of the power of goodness which was in them. 
It was hard at first to move them toward goodness ; 
but when they began to move nothing could arrest 
their progress. 

One of the most upright, generous, brave souls of 
the last generation was Isaac T. Hopper. He was 
a man full of the energy of goodness ; he had none 
of those " half virtues which the world calls best." 
Though as a man he was bold as a lion to defend 
the oppressed, the downtrodden, the fugitive, at any 
cost and risk to himself, when a boy he showed no 
such traits. He was self-willed, passionate, and hard 
to control. Out of a rugged and difficult soil sprang 
up one of the noblest characters. 

Now I do not mean to fall in with the foolish 
fashion of describing " bad boys " as though they 
were to be admired. I do not consider a boy or 
a girl to be a fit subject for biography because in- 
docile, impudent, and disobedient. I think the stories 
of this sort which we have, are false in their spirit 
and dangerous in their tendency. There is enough 
of impertinence and irreverence in American boys 



VIS INERTIAS IN NATURE AND LIFE. 297 

already ; such habits do not need to be cultivated. 
But what I believe is, that parents and teachers 
ought not to be discouraged because children may 
not be teachable or easily led while young, or be- 
cause they resist the efforts made to impress good 
ideas upon their minds. These children, at first 
unmanageable, may have in them a fine inert force, 
which will afterward show itself in an admirable 
development of character. Surround them with 
love, lead them into truth, show them that you trust 
in them, and that you expect them to do right and 
be right. So you will retain their confidence, so 
you will prevent them from being discouraged, and 
eventually you may find their reluctance and resist- 
ance gradually changing into what you desire for 
them. 

A remarkable illustration of what I have been 
saying is to be found in the "Autobiography of 
Anthony Trollope." Here was one who during the 
first seventeen years of his life seemed to be the 
most stolid and incapable of boys. He was almost 
as unpromising as Walter Scott, who was one of the 
dullest children of his generation. Trollope was at 
school twelve years, studying Latin and mathemat- 
ics, and the result was that he did not know his 
multiplication table, and could not translate the 
easiest Latin sentence ; his spelling and handwriting 
were both poor. Some more years he spent in the 
post-office, doing nothing but copying papers, and 
copying them badly. But all this turned out to be 



298 E VERY-DAY RELIGION. 

the evidence not of stupidity, but of a vast inert 
power. As soon as he had a real opportunity, and 
was thrown on his own resources, he began to 
develop enterprise, determination, invention, and the 
most irresistible strength of purpose. He wrote 
and published several novels which were dead fail- 
ures ; but, undiscouraged, he went on till he achieved 
a success. Meanwhile he worked steadily in his 
business, and proved himself capable and useful 
in the post-office. The Latin language, which had 
defeated him at school, he attacked in manhood, and 
mastered it so well as to be able to read Latin books 
with pleasure. In this case we have an example of 
the law of inert force in the soul ; powers hard to 
set in motion, but acquiring great momentum when 
once exerted. 

But now you may ask, " How shall we change 
this inertia into active force ? We have seen that 
a good resolution is not enough ; a single effort is 
not enough. How shall those who find it hard to 
overcome mental torpor and moral sluggishness, 
weak purposes, bad habits, succeed in changing 
these into a forward and upward movement ? What 
shall make us grow up, in all things, into the 
beautiful, the good, the true ? " 

The first step, evidently, is taken, when we feel 
the need of being different from what we are. So 
long as we are self-satisfied, there can be no progress. 
Plants grow without an effort, but the growth of the 
human soul requires the longing for something better, 



VIS INERTIsE IN NATURE AND LIFE. 299 

or what a German poet calls " extraordinary, gener- 
ous seeking." The old theology called this longing 
" the sense of sin," and considered it necessary to 
true conversion. Jesus calls it " a hunger and thirst 
after righteousness," — which I think is a larger 
definition. But it is plain that in some form this 
is the first step. We shall never improve much as 
long as we think we are good enough already. 

The next step of moral progress is that of pur- 
pose, resolve, determination. But that this may not 
be a barren purpose or empty resolution, it ought to 
be taken, not in doubt or fear, but with hope and 
confidence. In order to succeed in anything, we 
must expect to succeed. We need hope ; hope is 
the great motor in all progress. " But hope which 
is seen is not hope ; " that is, our hope must have 
some motive beyond anything we already see in 
ourselves. And the great source of this hope is that 
which others have for us, — others wiser and better 
than we. The mightiest help we can give to others 
in an upward course is to hope for them. When 
the wise and good, out of a larger and deeper expe- 
rience than ours, knowing all our faults, yet hope 
for us, then we begin to hope for ourselves. 

The power of Christianity seems largely to con- 
sist in this, — that it has given mankind a great 
hope. Christ was a revelation of God's purpose for 
his children. The New Testament is full of hope. 
While it shows the evil of sin, it always inspires a 
spirit of courage. It tells sinners that God has 



300 E VERY-DAY RELIGION. 

chosen them from the foundation of the world to 
be pure and holy in Christ Jesus. It moves men 
not by the fear of hell, but by the hope of heaven. 
Sin and evil are the dark background to a sunny 
landscape where light and love shine with heavenly 
radiance. The New Testament shows us an in- 
finite tenderness in God to every child whom he 
has made ; a love which nothing can weary. It 
calls us out of darkness into a marvellous light ; 
out of sin into holiness, generosity, purity, love. It 
makes us feel that we can do all things through 
Christ who strengthens us. So we find in the 
gospel this double power, — truth, which shows 
us what we ought to be ; love, which shows us. that 
we can be what we ought, and that we can do 
all things through the power given to us by God. 

The law of vis inertice implies that where there 
is the most power at last, there is the most diffi- 
culty at first. We cannot, then, expect that this 
great Christian faith in God, goodness, immortality, 
heaven, is to come without effort and struggle. We 
do not acquire this power of faith by reading a few 
books of theology, or by a process of reasoning. It 
grows up by a long experience ; it is developed by 
a continued discipline. As life goes on, our faith 
ought to grow deeper every year. We first believe 
in God and Christ and the future life because these 
seem reasonable beliefs. But as we live in them 
and from them they become more and more real and 
certain. We learn by degrees to feel the presence 



VIS INERTIJE IN NATURE AND LIFE. 301 

of God in Nature and in Our own soul ; we learn by 
degrees to have more and more faith in Christ as 
our great helper ; we learn to pray more and more 
in spirit and truth. The prayer of form is easy ; 
the prayer of faith is one of the greatest efforts 
of which the human mind is capable. 

The law of inertia, therefore, seems to apply, not 
only in the physical order, but in the moral and 
spiritual order too. If we ask what is its good and 
what its evil, we have reached the result that it is 
wholly good. It helps us to keep what we gain ; 
it preserves the moral and spiritual forces of the 
universe. It is the secret of progress. ' It is the 
condition of the great ascent of man from earth to 
heaven, from good to better, from imperfect truth 
and goodness to that which is unchanging and 
eternal. 



XX. 

THINK OF GOOD THINGS, NOT OF 
BAD THINGS. 



XX. 

THINK OF GOOD THINGS, NOT OF BAD 
THINGS. 



" Whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are hon- 
est, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, 
whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good 
report . . . think of these things." 

r I THE doctrine of the Apostle here is that it is 
-*- better to look at truth than at falsehood ; at 
what is noble than at what is mean ; at purity, and 
not at impurity ; at the beautiful, and not at the 
deformed ; at goodness, not at wickedness. 

The reason of this is obvious. It is a law of 
human nature that men are influenced by their 
environment. Mr. Brace takes boys from the streets 
of New York, who, if they grew up there, would 
inevitably furnish a large addition to the vicious 
and criminal classes. He sends them out to farms 
in Illinois and Iowa, and they become useful citi- 
zens. These boys are many of them the children 
of vicious people and criminals. But environment 
is too strong for heredity. The bad tendencies in 

20 



306 E VERY-DAY RELIGION. 

their blood are overcome by the purer influences 
around them. 

But beside the outward environment of good or 
bad influences which go to educate us, there is an 
inner environment which is much more powerful. 
This consists of our own thoughts, our mental 
habits, our intellectual associations. That which we 
love to think about reacts on our character, and sur- 
rounds the soul with a sort of Chinese wall which 
other influences can with difficulty break through. 

You must have noticed that within the last year 
or two we have had many accounts of little bands 
of juvenile robbers, — of children who have pro- 
cured revolvers and have set up as brigands. What 
can be the cause of this but the pernicious dime 
novels describing boy brigands, and making heroes 
of young fellows who have run away from home 
and have tried to be bandits ? These children may 
have been surrounded by good influences at home 
and at school, but their hearts and thoughts came 
under the power of these silly and evil stories. 

The Bible says, very wisely, " As a man thinketh 
in his heart, so is he." That is, a man's character 
is formed by what he loves to think about. There 
are matters which we think about because we must, 
— matters of business, daily duty, — but into which, 
often, we do not put our hearts ; matters which 
we do mechanically and automatically. There are 
other subjects to which our thoughts turn of them- 
selves, as the compass needle which you have 



THINK OF GOOD THINGS, ETC. 307 

moved from the north with your finger immediately 
trembles back when you let it go. 

Now, it is what we think in our hearts, what we 
love to think about, which forms our character. 
What is a miser but a man who has devoted his 
thoughts for years to making and saving money, 
till at last it becomes impossible for him to think 
of anything else ? He would be glad to use his 
money, to enjoy it, to give, but he cannot; his 
thoughts have worn so deep a rut of habit that he is 
unable to get out of it. As he thinks in his heart, 
so is he. 

We talk about the education which comes from 
books, the culture which is given by study, by 
schools, by lectures ; but the deepest and strongest 
of all education comes from the atmosphere of 
thought with which we surround our souls. There- 
fore the Apostle says, Think of what is true, noble, 
beautiful, good ; not of what is false, base, and 
mean. To think of good things, good men, noble 
actions, elevates the soul ; to think of base and 
mean things draws it down. 

There is a kind of captious criticism which de- 
votes itself to finding errors and falsehoods. In 
theology this method of work has been made a 
special department ; it is called Polemic theology, 
— that is, warlike theology. You will find some 
religious periodicals full of it. They fill their col- 
umns with attacks on other sects, with severe 
remarks upon heresy and heretics, and think that 



308 E VERY-DAY RELIGION. 

by this warlike theology they are helping the Prince 
of Peace. They declare themselves serving truth 
by this course. But we serve truth best, not by 
attacking error, but by positive statements ; by 
showing truth itself in its majesty and power. 
This is difficult ; while denial, criticism, and fault- 
finding are easy. 

There is an opposite theology which I call Irenic, 
or peace-making, theology. It does not consist in 
compromises, or in ignoring differences, or even in 
making light of error; it does not say, " Peace," where 
there is no peace, but it seeks first for the truth 
in all opinions, and afterward for the error. The 
day will come in which this Irenic theology will 
prevail ; when Christians will rejoice in all the truth 
which God has sent to man in other religions, — 
rejoice to believe that mankind has always wor- 
shipped God, though under many different names, 
calling him Ormuzd or Bramah, Osiris or Zeus, or 
adoring the ineffable beauty and majesty of the 
universe without name or ritual or creed. The 
time must also come when Christian sects will lay 
aside their mutual hostility and jealousy, and rejoice 
to find that the points in which they agree are 
vastly more numerous and more important than 
those in which they differ. Then, at last, we shall 
have a true Catholic church, — many members in 
one body. Suppose, in a city like Boston, all the 
two hundred churches of different denominations 
should form one great organization, united in the 



THINK OF GOOD THINGS, ETC. 309 

common work of purifying the city from its evils 
and sins, and bringing all souls to God, to truth, 
and to love. This will be done whenever each sect 
opens its mind to see the good and the truth and 
the love that there is in all the rest, instead of 
dwelling on their supposed errors. 

In the same way the mistake of those who at- 
tack religion, Christianity, and the Bible, is, that 
they fix their mind on the errors and faults in 
all these, and not on what they are doing and have 
done for truth and goodness. 

It is so easy to find fault ! It is so easy to point 
out the errors of your neighbors, and stop there ! 
But the question is, What are you to give us in the 
place of what you reject ? The soul of man cries out 
for God, for the living God. It is too great to be 
satisfied with the things seen and temporal. For- 
ever it looks beyond them to the things unseen and 
eternal. We, who believe in God, in the soul, in 
immortality, admit many of the errors and evils you 
assail ; but we ask, " Can you give us something 
better, more true, more beautiful, than the faith you 
despise ? " Do not feed us with the husk of criti- 
cism and denial when we are longing for divine 
truth. 

It is certain that a habit of fault-finding, nega- 
tive criticism, and denial, tends to decay and death. 
It is easy to obtain the applause of a crowd by 
pulling down what men have been accustomed to 
revere. But such triumphs are ephemeral. Not 



310 EVERY-DAY RELIGION. 

the destructive thinkers, but the creative thinkers, 
are honored through all time as the benefactors of 
their race. 

Analogous to this destructive criticism which 
attacks institutions and creeds is the cynical habit 
which looks for evil rather than goodness in human 
nature and human life. There is a cheap kind of 
worldly wisdom which prides itself on its knowl- 
edge of human nature, when it is only looking on 
the dark side of things. This, also, is a path which 
leads nowhere. 

The largeness of the apostle's mind is seen in 
this recommendation to look with interest on 
< c whatsoever things " are true, beautiful, and good. 
Some persons devote themselves to truth alone. 
Many preachers seem to think it the only object of 
the Christian pulpit to expound and enforce their 
peculiar systems of theology and metaphysics. 
Others think that only what is beautiful in nature 
or life is valuable, forgetting that all beauty, even 
the beauty of holiness, has its roots in some law, 
some principle. Others tell us to be good, to do 
our duty, and imagine that ethical instruction and 
moral lectures are enough to help us. But these 
alone, without faith as their root, are lifeless. We 
need the living tree, with faith as its root, beauty 
as its bright consummate flower, and goodness as 
its fruit. The power of Christianity, as given us 
by Jesus, is that it combines, in a perfect harmony, 
the true, the beautiful, and the good. 



THINK OF GOOD THINGS, ETC. 311 

In the passage quoted, the Apostle unites these 
elements, and tells us to think of them, to fix our 
minds on them all. " Whatsoever things are true," 
he says, think of them. ~No matter where they come 
from, — from heretic, infidel, pagan, atheist, — if they 
can teach you anything new which you have not 
already known, thankfully accept it. " Whatsoever 
things are honest." " Honest " is not exactly the 
proper word here. A better translation would be, 
" Whatsoever things are adorable or worthv of rev- 
erence." The habit of looking up with reverence 
to what is above us is one of the chief moral forces 
which elevate the soul. The soul which, consumed 
by egotism, vanity, jealousy, is unable to see noble- 
ness and revere it, has lost a great motive to prog- 
ress. ' The greatest souls have been those most 
full of reverence. Shakspeare calls Eeverence " the 
angel of the world." Dr. Spurzheim, one of the 
acutest of observers, long ago remarked that one 
of the chief defects of American character was the 
want of reverence. Without Reverence, life loses 
one of its chief charms, character becomes angular 
and hard, conduct grows wilful. Dignity, harmony, 
and the highest culture depend on reverence as 
their foundation. " Whatsoever things are ador- 
able, noble, divine, reverence them." Eeverence for 
these things opens the soul to what is heavenly, and 
brings down God into our hearts. 

How mean is that life which has lost the power 
of seeing nobleness ! Some persons by conceit, or 



312 E VERY-DAY RELIGION. 

jealousy, or envy, close their hearts against the 
sight of what is excellent. They live in a fog of 
detraction, trying to lift themselves up by pulling 
others down. 

The newspapers, with all the good they do, do 
us harm by continually showing us the dark side of 
life. The .natural effect of reading them is to think 
the world made up of villains. Every morning 
they tell us of the evil acts done in the world 
since yesterday. We are told of every swindler, 
every knave, every man who has cheated and 
robbed, plundered his employers, deceived those 
who trusted him. We are apt to forget how small 
a part such men make of the great mass of society ; 
what multitudes of happy homes, good friends, true 
and kind hearts, conscientious and faithful workers, 
there are in the world. 

Once when I was in Marietta, Georgia, I visited 
the United States cemetery where repose the Union 
soldiers killed in Sherman's campaign around At- 
lanta. There are ten thousand in all. On seven 
thousand headstones are the names of those who 
lie beneath. But on three thousand stones there 
is no name ; no one knows who lie there. Nameless 
martyrs for Union and freedom, they are unmarked 
by man and only known to God. 

So, in our human life, are thousands of nameless 
martyrs, who devote themselves to truth and duty, 
and bless those around them, but whose names are 
on no monument, and never appear in the columns 



THINK OF GOOD THINGS, ETC. 313 

of a newspaper. They make the real foundations 
on which our whole social structure rests. The 
foundations of a building are out of sight. Thus 
we are in danger of forgetting how much more of 
good there is in the world than evil, because evil is 
conspicuous and good is unobtrusive. 

Paul does not forget the every-day virtues. He 
tells us to think of whatsoever things are just, pure, 
amiable, " of good report," everything which gives 
happiness to human life, which adds a charm to 
earthly existence. He does not despise beauty as 
our Puritan fathers did, nor undervalue the lighter 
graces of our common homes. Whatsoever things 
are " well spoken of " seemed to him to have some 
element of worth. He did not depreciate earthly 
goodness as " mere morality," or think that whatever 
was popular must necessarily be bad. He believed 
that men really like good things, and not bad things, 
and that popularity itself probably indicates some 
kind of merit. 

If the things we love to think about thus mould 
and influence our character, is it not evident that 
when we love to think of God, we must receive the 
best influences ? To think of God from fear, or as 
a form, or as a ritualistic duty, helps us little. But 
when our thoughts flow upward to God as the 
all-loving friend, the ineffable tenderness ; the power 
which pours into Nature the abounding life of spring : 
who is seen in all the glory of summer skies, in the 
immeasurable smile of ocean, and the living solitude 



314 EVERY-DAY RELIGION. 

of the Adirondack woods ; in noble friendship and 
generous love, — when he comes to us as the per- 
sonification of all that is most sublime and all that 
is most lovely in our human life, lifting it to an 
infinite value, bestowing on it an eternal stability, 
then the thought of him feeds the soul as nothing 
else does. It lifts up our heart, strengthens every 
good purpose, consoles us in every sorrow, gives us 
a power not our own to cleave to right, and thus 
feeds the soul from its centre with what is best. 
This is the Holy Spirit, which Jesus called " a well 
of water, springing up into eternal life " in the human 
heart. 

We are sometimes asked tauntingly, and some- 
times sorrowfully, " How can any one know whether 
there is a God ? " The idea of God is in every 
human mind, and so deeply planted that it cannot 
be eradicated. We have within us the idea of the 
infinite and the eternal, though we have seen only 
what is finite and temporal. The universe is in- 
finite and eternal. We can conceive of no limits to 
its extent and no bounds to its duration. We have 
in our minds the great conceptions of universal law, 
of infinite causation, of an everlasting distinction 
between right and wrong, and these are above all 
earthly experience. These conceptions are united 
in the idea of God, above all, through all, and with- 
in all things. And we are compelled by our reason 
to see unity in all things. We do not live in a chaos 
of drifting atoms, but in a cosmos of order and unity. 



THINK OF GOOD THINGS, ETC. 315 

Hence the conception of God is fixed in every hu- 
man soul. 

But we may know God without knowing that we 
know him, or we may know him consciously. To 
pass to the conscious from the unconscious knowl- 
edge of God is the beginning of the higher life. 
This knowledge of God comes through experience, 
like other knowledge. It is by loving to do his 
will, loving to think of him in all things, loving to 
bear what he sends, feeling his presence in Nature 
and life, seeking his help for duty, his support in 
trial, that we come to know him. We know him by 
intercourse. It is by loving him that God becomes 
to us a reality, an object of knowledge. 

We are also asked, " How do you know that God 
is a personal friend, and not a mere blind power, 
working unconsciously in Nature ? " I answer that 
God, who by the very definition of the term is the 
highest of all beings, and the cause of all existence, 
cannot be lower and less than what he has made. 
Human personality is the most mysterious, the most 
certain, and the greatest fact in Nature. It com- 
bines in a perfect conscious unity thought, love, and 
will. This conscious unity of purpose, knowledge, 
and desire makes man the master of the w r orld. If 
God is only an impersonal force, like those forces of 
Nature which we call blind, he is in this respect 
inferior to man, whom he has made. 

Man's personality is the image and revelation of 
the divine personality. The highest person who 



316 E VERY-DAY RELIGION. 

has ever appeared on earth, who combined in a per- 
fect harmony more of wisdom, of power, and of love 
than any other, is thus the best revelation of the 
personality of God. Therefore Jesus of ISTazareth 
is " the brightness of God's glory and the express 
image of his person." He is not the personal God, 
but the express image of that personality. His in- 
finite compassion for man, his heavenly generosity, 
his sublime devotion to truth and goodness, are the 
best revelation of God to the heart. They bring us 
near to him. He who has seen Jesus has seen the 
Father, and is helped to come into direct communion 
with him. 

Our friend, Edward Hale, has given us a favorite 
maxim, " Look up, and not down." This is the 
moral of what I have been saying here. Love 
to think of what is true, good, excellent, in every- 
thing and in every one, rather than what is false, 
wrong, and evil. These thoughts give us strength 
and peace, and are the source of true life. To 
do this brings us to God, and to know God and 
Jesus whom he has sent is life eternal. If there be 
any good anywhere, think of it. If there be any 
goodness anywhere, think of it. And to think of 
these aright, think of Him from whom all goodness 
comes and to whom all goodness tends. 



XXI. 

THE SIN WHICH BESETS US, AND THE 
GOOD WHICH HELPS US. 



XXI. 

THE SIN WHICH BESETS US, AND THE 
GOOD WHICH HELPS US. 



" The sin which easily besets us." 

THE Greek word which is here translated "besets," 
occurs only once in the New Testament, and 
probably means " that which insidiously surrounds 
or encircles one." The writer is comparing the 
Christian life to a race, and to run this race it is 
necessary to lay aside every weight and the habits 
which hamper one's movements. The man who 
was to run a race in the Greek or Eoman games 
laid aside the outer cloak which encircled his body 
and which would have impeded his course. There- 
fore the writer says to Christians, " In running the 
Christian race, lay aside every impediment, — the 
weights which would keep you back, the sins which 
would entangle you like an outer cloak, — and then 
you can run more freely." 

Most of us have some besetting sin ; some temp- 
tation which is harder to resist than any other. 



320 EVERY-DAY RELIGION. 

Men are different by organization, education, and 
position, and thus their temptations are different. 
The greatest and best men have some tempta- 
tion which attacks them most readily and con- 
stantly. The saint has his peculiar temptations no 
less than the sinner. 

In fact, every good quality a man has, by nature 
or grace, will run into a fault, unless balanced by 
some antagonist quality or principle. You would 
be apt to say that one could not be too conscien- 
tious. That is true. But he may have an unbal- 
anced conscience, an uninstructed conscience, a 
too scrupulous conscience, an irritable conscience. 
Paul's unenlightened conscience made him think that 
he verily ought to persecute the Christians. Many 
other persecutors since his day have verily thought 
that they were serving God and doing their duty 
in persecuting heretics. Their conscience was un- 
educated. I have known people who were so con- 
scientiously afraid of doing wrong that they did 
not venture to do right. They had a negative con- 
scientiousness. Others have an irritable conscience. 
They are always tormenting themselves about their 
sins, sifting their motives, creating imaginary sins 
for themselves and others. To them the preacher 
referred, I suppose, when he said, " Be not righteous 
overmuch. Why shonldst thou destroy thyself?" 
The difficulty in such cases is that the conscience 
acts in too solitary, independent, and unbalanced 
a way. Instead of being a constitutional king, 



THE SIN WHICH BESETS US. 321 

governing by an organic law, it is a despot, ruling 
by will. It needs to be balanced by an enlightened 
intellect and a hopeful faith. 

If even conscience may thus become a tempta- 
tion, much more may other good qualities. Sym- 
pathy, good-nature, kindliness, are excellent powers, 
which soften and sweeten life. Only, if not held 
upright by the love of truth and justice, they may 
make us too soft and too yielding. A sympathetic 
person feels so strongly the claims of those who 
are present and around him, that he may forget 
what he owes to others who are absent. When he 
meets you to-day, he will become so interested in 
you as to break the promise he made to me yester- 
day. With him the absent have always less claim 
than those who are present. The temptation of a 
good-natured man is to break his promises, not to 
keep his engagements ; to give away, on the spur of 
the moment, what really belongs to some one else. 
Goldsmith, in his comedy of " The Good-Natured 
Man," has described this weakness. 

Hopefulness is another noble quality. It ani- 
mates to great actions, stimulates to enterprise, is 
the motive to endeavor, and the cause of wonder- 
ful successes. Without this element of hope, there 
would be no progress, and life would lose much of 
its sunshine and charm. But hope, unbalanced by 
prudence, by caution, by sound judgment, is the 
source of rash speculation, wild adventure, and a 
confidence which trusts in luck rather than in 
21 



322 E VERY-DAY RELIGION. 

industry and faithful continuance in well-doing. 
The hopeful man is tempted to take things for 
granted ; and taking things for granted is the source 
of much failure and misery. 

Eeverence, as we have already seen, is a beauti- 
ful and elevating attribute of the human soul. The 
root of religion, it inspires worship, it creates en- 
thusiasm for goodness and beauty ; it is the source 
of a lovely modesty ; it carries with it an ineffable 
charm which gives harmony to life. Those des- 
titute of reverence are apt to be harsh and abrupt 
in their manners, coarse in fibre, egotistical and 
obstinate in character. And yet, out of an un- 
balanced reverence has come every kind of super- 
stition, — a blind idolatry for the past, deference 
to custom, and hatred to reform. It is the cause of 
the most narrow kind of conservatism, which says, 
" Whatever is, is right." 

But the reformer, in whom the organ of rever- 
ence is unusually small, has his own temptations too. 
He is prone to despise the past, to destroy any ex- 
isting institution simply because it exists. Instead 
of saying, "Whatever is, is right," his motto and 
maxim often runs, "Whatever is, is wrong." The 
experience of centuries goes for nothing with such 
a man ; he is ready to pull down established insti- 
tutions, to overthrow ancient creeds, to attack the 
convictions of mankind, on the strength of the last 
notion which has happened to come into his head. 
It is under the lead of such men that reform passes 



THE SIN WHICH BESETS US. 323 

into destructive revolution; and that "altars are 
spurned, thrones insulted, order mocked at, and law 
defied." 

Thus we might go on and show how temptation 
attacks us through our best tendencies ; how every- 
one has the defects of his qualities, and how no 
virtue is able to stand alone. Every unbalanced 
virtue drifts insensibly into a vice. Unbalanced 
courage ceases to be courage, and becomes rashness ; 
unbalanced caution is not caution, but timidity. 
The unbalanced love of excellence changes it into 
a mad ambition. 

What is higher, what more all-inclusive, than 
love ? One apostle says of love, that it fulfils every 
commandment and comprehends every duty. An- 
other tells us that he who loves dwells in God, and 
God in him. Saint Theresa, that best flower of 
Spain, " in the midst of all her terrors of sin, could 
find nothing worse to say of Satan himself than 
this, ' Poor wretch ! he is unable to love ! ' and her 
only idea of hell was of a place whence love was 
banished." And yet, if love be not joined with 
truth, it ceases to be love. It loses its purity, its 
energy, its power to correct and reform the world, 
and passes into some form of weak concession, of 
passive sympathy. We see in the wonderful maj- 
esty of Jesus how in him truth and love were in 
perfect harmony, neither of them more apparent 
than the other. His was the truth spoken in love, 
the truth acted in love. In him mercy and truth 



324 EYERY-DAY RELIGION. 

met together, righteousness and peace kissed each 
other. 

But nowhere else, not even in the apostles, do we 
find such perfect harmony. Peter and Paul had 
each his own besetting sins, his own peculiar temp- 
tations. Peter was bold, hasty, impetuous, rash; 
and, like other hasty men, he had to pay the penalty 
by sometimes recanting what he had said. Such a 
man, under a strong impulse, will scale a height 
which he is not capable of maintaining. Under the 
excitement of his Master's arrest, Peter was bold as 
a lion, and drew his sword and smote the servant 
of the High Priest. Afterward, calmed down by 
finding himself alone among his Master's enemies, 
afraid of ridicule if he confessed the truth, he denied 
that same Master whom just before he had been 
ready to defend with his life. When in the pres- 
ence of Cornelius, and seeing how good a man this 
heathen was, he rose for an hour to the height of 
the universal religion of Christ, and declared that 
" in every nation he who feared God and wrought 
righteousness was accepted of him." But afterward, 
in the presence and under the influence of bigoted 
Jews, he relapsed, and, according to Paul's account, 
dissimulated his real opinion, and refused to admit 
Gentiles to full communion. His temptation was 
to yield too much to the influences around him, 
and to follow the impulse of the moment. Thus he 
fell into inconsistencies. Peter was no hypocrite, 
he was the very opposite of that ; but he was some- 



THE SIN WHICH BESETS US. 325 

times inconsistent. And I think you will every- 
where find ten or a hundred inconsistent Christians 
where you discover one hypocrite. 

Very different were the characteristics of the 
Apostle Paul, and his temptations were of another 
order. Paul was a man of fixed ideas, who lived 
to propagate his own convictions of truth. To 
preach these ideas, this new gospel, was his life. 
" The life I now live, I live by faith in the Son of. 
God." " "Woe is me if I preach not the gospel." 
The very suggestion that he might be mistaken 
about the resurrection filled him with horror. " If 
in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of 
all men the most miserable." He could not work 
with those who did not believe as strongly as him- 
self. He therefore left Judea and the Jews to the 
apostles, and took the whole Gentile world as his 
own dominion. He could not work long even with 
Barnabas. Free in his own intellectual activity, 
unfettered by any past, he was often impatient with 
those whose minds were more limited than his own. 
When he w r ent for the first time to Jerusalem, and 
met the other apostles there, he was apparently 
disappointed by the limitation of their thoughts. 
" Those who seemed to be something," he says, 
" added nothing to me in conference." Who these 
were he tells us shortly afterward. He says that 
when James, Peter, and John, who seemed to be 
pillars, perceived the grace given to him, they gave 
to him and Barnabas the right hand of fellowship, 



326 EVERY-DAY RELIGION. 

that they should go to the Gentiles, and the other 
apostles to the Jews. Then he describes how when 
Peter came to Antioch he, Paul, withstood him to 
his face, because he did not walk uprightly. Is 
there not a slight touch of self-esteem and conscious 
superiority in the expression " those who seemed to 
be something," and in his saying that they could 
tell him nothing about Christianity which he did 
•not know already ? There lay his temptation, in 
the pride of intellect, in conscious mental suprem- 
acy. But he fought against this evil. He often 
reminded himself how he had persecuted the Chris- 
tian Church. He kept before his mind the humility 
of Jesus. This grand intellect, this man of mighty 
intelligence, sacrificed thought and knowledge on 
the altar of love ; said that knowledge was nothing, 
love everything ; that knowledge would pass away, 
and only faith, hope, and love remain. Among the 
Corinthians, a people of active intelligence, he de- 
clared that God had chosen the foolish things t)f the 
world to confound the wise, and that the world by 
wisdom could never know God. He tells them that 
when he came anions them he laid aside his wis- 
dom, his logic, rhetoric, and philosophy, and made 
up his mind to preach the simple facts of Christ's 
life, death, and resurrection. " I determined to 
know nothing among you but Jesus and him cruci- 
fied." " I fed you with milk, and not meat." " Not 
with enticing words of men's wisdom, but with 
demonstration of the Spirit and of power." Paul 



THE SIN WHICH BESETS US. 327 

knew what was his besetting sin, and resisted it by 
a noble act of self-denial. 

It is curious to see how great men come in pairs, 
essentially different in their merits and defects, each 
somehow the supplement of the other. After Peter 
and Paul came Augustine and Jerome, Bernard and 
Abelard, Luther and Melanchthon, Wesley and Whit- 
field. Among the Greeks what a contrast between 
Aristides and Themistocles, — the one sternly just, 
severely righteous, refusing success and victory if 
they had to be earned by a single dishonest act; the 
other infinitely adroit, of vast ambition, brave and 
generous, but ready to take any advantage whether 
right or wrong. The result was that the upright 
Aristides was unpopular with the people. His 
severe integrity made him enemies, and his great 
services to the State were forgotten. Themistocles, 
on the other hand, was admired and loved, and had 
an unbounded popularity with the multitude. Aris- 
tides, strong in his perfect integrity, had little sym- 
pathy with weakness. Themistocles, sympathetic 
and full of kindly impulse, had no foundation of 
integrity. 

John Quincy Adams was the typical Aristides of 
our time, as perfectly upright as he, and quite as 
unpopular. He had such a despotic conscience 
that his biographer says any duty had for him an 
irresistible attraction ; but if it happened to be a 
disagreeable duty the attraction became an over- 
whelming enthusiasm. He never seemed able to 



328 E VERY-DAY RELIGION. 

escape himself in his intercourse with others. He 
was like a monument which overlooks sea and land, 
grand, immovable, but very lonely. 

Thus our temptations may come from our virtues 
no less than from our vices. The virtues and vices 
often grow out of the same roots ; and there are 
tendencies, good in themselves, which become bad 
in their unbalanced excess. There are also bad 
tendencies in the blood, hard to eliminate by dis- 
cipline, which are inherited from the past. Our 
temptations come, moreover, from habits we may 
have unconsciously and innocently formed, a habit 
of self-justification, of fault-finding, of looking at 
the dark side of things ; a habit of irreverence in 
word or action, adopted perhaps out of gayety of 
heart, out of dislike to religious and moral cant, 
but not the less dangerous ; a habit of anxiety, or 
one of procrastination, or of satire and sarcastic 
speech ; or a custom of talking about one's self, or 
indulgence in a wilful determination to have our 
own way in everything. These habits are the sins 
which easily beset us, which hamper the soul and 
debase it. 

Then there are temptations peculiar to races, 
to nationalities, to occupations, to position. The 
temptation of the English is to honor power, of 
the French to worship glory, of the Americans to 
admire smartness. The lawyer, the preacher, the 
platform orator, are all tempted to put rhetoric for 
logic, plausible and persuasive sophisms for solid 



THE SIN WHICH BESETS US. 329 

truths. The temptation of the conservative is to 
oppose all reform ; of the reformer to carry reform 
into revolution. The temptation of the Orthodox 
believer is to fear progress ; that of the heretic to 
take pride in not believing, and to think that be- 
cause the houses of our forefathers are narrow and 
disagreeable, we can live out of doors with no house 
at all. 

These are the sins which easily beset us. But 
let us not forget that if we are surrounded by 
temptations, God has with every temptation opened 
a way of escape. The influences to good are also 
within us and around us, and are mightier than 
those which lead to evil. Where sin abounds, oTace 
yet more abounds. Were it not for this, life would 
be too hard, and duty too difficult. 

First of all consider this, — that man has the 
wonderful faculty of reflection. He can stand 
apart from himself and look at himself. He is 
capable of self-knowledge, — that self-knowledge 
which ancient wisdom declared to have come down 
from heaven. He can judge himself, discover his 
own faults, acknowledge them, and so rise above 
them and at last conquer them. The first step is 
to get rid of self-justification and excuses, to see 
ourselves as we are. But even this self-examina- 
tion must not go too far. It is not necessary or 
desirable to be always dissecting our character and 
analyzing our motives. Let us simply keep a 
watch over ourselves, and when we go wrong, see 



330 E VERY-DAY RELIGION. 

it and frankly admit it. This is confession, and of 
this the deepest experience has said, " that if we 
confess our sins, God is faithful and just to forgive 
us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteous- 
ness." When we do not palliate, disguise, or jus- 
tify our faults, but are willing to see them as they 
are, to put them behind us, and return to the right 
way, then God's forgiveness appears in his taking 
away the burden of evil. Then we are converted, 
and become as little children ; like little children 
we are light of heart, free of soul, able to look up, 
to hope, to trust in the heavenly help and the di- 
vine love. It is God's law that it should be so ; 
not merely God's compassion, but his justice is 
pledged to it. It is a part of the order of the uni- 
verse that he who is willing to see and admit his 
sin shall be thus inwardly made new. 

This great law of recovery and renewal is the first 
good thing winch helps us. Then comes the good- 
ness which surrounds us ; the good men and women 
we know and have known ; the good and noble lives 
we have seen ; the inspiration of good books, sacred 
Scriptures, tender and noble poems, the presence of 
God above and around us ; the gracious providence 
which blesses us day by day. All this gives us faith 
in goodness ; and faith in the reality and power of 
goodness is another great help to resist temptation 
and conquer sin. 

There is also in human nature the wonderful 
power of adopting an ideal aim and pursuing it 



THE SIN WHICH BESETS US. 331 

in spite of all obstacles. This power has been the 
secret of vast accomplishment. A persistent pur- 
pose is almost sure, in the long run, to triumph. 
This faculty belongs to man. Animals have a pur- 
pose, and act with an intention ; but, so far as we 
know, no animal ever adopts an ideal aim and pur- 
sues it. The dog, the ant, the half-reasoning ele- 
phant, pursue the aims common to their race, the 
purposes fixed in their nature. But man can say, 
" I will devote my life to becoming rich, to becom- 
ing wise, to becoming powerful." Or he may say, 
" I will make it the object of my life to grow, to 
form a noble character, and to this aim all others 
shall be secondary." 

Then, too, by self-scrutiny we see that there is a 
power of goodness within us by which we may hope 
to conquer evil. Every one has a good side, a ten- 
dency upward. Total depravity is an absurdity and 
an impossibility. And if there is hereditary de- 
pravity, there is also hereditary goodness. That, 
also, has become a part of our blood and brain. In 
every human being there is not only some peculiar 
weakness, some besetting sin, but also some special 
strength, some element of power. It is just as im- 
portant, just as much a duty, to find out the good 
side of our character as the bad side, for we need 
this as an encouragement and help. For the same 
reason it is the duty of parents, teachers, and friends 
to show children and youth not only their faults, 
but also their good qualities. Those who dislike us 



332 EVERY-DAY RELIGION. 

can find our faults ; we need also that those who 
love us should tell us, not only what we ought to 
do, hut what we can do. If we all have some sin 
which easily besets us, we have also some goodness 
which is ready to help us. And by encouraging the 
good side of our life we conquer the evil. 

Another great and blessed help is the society and 
companionship of good people, of those better than 
ourselves, of those ivho are going the right way. 
This strengthens in us everything which is best. 

The real object of the Christian church is to give us 
good company ; to put one who is trying to do right 
with others who are also trying to do right. Jesus 
gave the definition of his church when he said, 
" Where two or three meet together in my name, 
there am I in the midst of them." He does not say 
where a large number sit side by side, but where 
two or three meet together. It is not a meeting of 
outward, visible contact, but of inward communion 
of mind and heart. And " in his name." That does 
not mean calling; him Lord, Lord ! but being; in his 
spirit, having his purpose, meeting to do his work. 
If two or three unite together to help the Lord's poor, 
to redeem the slave, to aid each other in growing 
better and wiser, then, though Jesus has gone up to 
God, his Father and ours, he will come to make an- 
other invisible companion in that group of his ser- 
vants. Many people try to get into good society ; 
they strain every nerve to gain another step in their 
social position. But the best society in the world 



THE SIN WHICH BESETS US. 333 

is where good people unite for a good object, for 
the Lord Jesus himself is in their midst. His 
sacred, invisible presence softens and strengthens 
their hearts. This is the great blessing of the 
church of Christ, that, with all its faults, it offers 
to every struggling soul, however lowly, forlorn, and 
weak, this " good society," this " good company," so 
that they are no longer wholly lonely or forlorn. 

Let us surround our souls with all good things, — 
good companionship, good books, good work, — for 
these strengthen and encourage the good side of our 
life. 

But the best and highest of all influences is that 
which comes to us when we walk daily in the pres- 
ence of our heavenly Father ; when we are able to 
talk with him as with a friend ; when we know that 
he loves us, and that his spirit is ready to help us. 
Plutarch tells us that Pericles, almost the greatest 
of the orators of Greece, never went into a public 
meeting to speak to the people, without asking the 
gods to help him say the right thing, and to keep 
him from saying the wrong. We, every morning, 
enter on a new day, in which we are to meet un- 
known dangers, duties, opportunities, in which we 
may do good or evil to those around us. What 
a difference it would make if we should, every 
morning, look up, open our hearts, and seek for 
guidance, good influence, a good spirit, from that 
divine Power who is always waiting to be gracious ! 
" Waiting to be gracious ; " waiting till we give him 



334 E VERY-DAY RELIGION. 

an opportunity of blessing us ; knocking at the door 
of our heart till we are willing to open it to that 
which is most tender and blessed in the universe. 
Of all goodness, his is the goodness which is most 
ready to help us. Other goodness hesitates and 
lingers. His is waiting to be gracious. The good- 
ness of our best friends sometimes grows weary, but 
his is never tired out by our folly or our sin. The 
best and noblest human heart is not always pre- 
pared to meet our emergency ; but God's love is at 
hand, in all its fulness, every hour. 

Let us surround ourselves with all this human 
and superhuman help, thus to meet the exigencies 
of our life. 



XXII. 
THE GOOD SAMAEITAN. 



XXII. 

THE GOOD SAMARITAN. 



" Who is my neighbor ? " 

rjlHE lawyer was not asking this question for 
-*- information, but rather to find out what Jesus 
would say. There was nothing wrong in this. 
Jesus himself often asked questions in the same 
way, — not for information, but to lead his disciples 
to search into their own minds. This is one way 
of teaching, and a very ancient one. It is called 
the catechetical method of instruction. Socrates 
used it almost exclusively. By asking a series of 
carefully arranged questions, he compelled his dis- 
ciples to search their own minds to the bottom, and 
find out what they really knew and believed, and 
what they did not. Jesus did the same. Thus, he 
said to Philip, "Whence shall we buy bread for 
these to eat ? " " And. this," adds the Evangelist, 
" he said to prove him, for he himself knew what 
he would do." The word here translated prove is 
the Greek word ireipd^w, elsewhere usually trans- 
lated tempt. Twenty-nine times it is translated 
tempt, and eight times examine, try, prove, assay. It 

22 



838 EVERY-DAY RELIGION. 

has a good or bad meaning, according to circum- 
stances. When questions are asked to mislead, to 
confuse, then it may be rendered tempt ; but when 
they are asked to bring out truth, we may translate 
it by the word try, or examine. A lawyer, in court, 
asks questions of witnesses, not always for informa- 
tion, but to try them, to find out what they really 
know. When his object is to elicit truth, then he 
is doing right ; but when he asks questions in order 
to confuse the witness and throw a cloud over the 
testimony, then he is a Satan, a tempter. All de- 
pends on the moth r e and the method. 

I do not think that this lawyer had any wrong 
motive in asking Jesus the question, "Who is my 
neighbor ? " The worst we can say of him is that 
he probably thought he could test the insight 
of Jesus by his acuteness, and found himself very 
soon in deeper water than he expected. At all 
events, we cannot find fault with him, for his ques- 
tion resulted for us in a great good. It brought 
out the story of the Good Samaritan, which other- 
wise we might never have had. 

I have often said that if I wished to have a creed, 
I should make myself one by taking the para- 
bles of the Prodigal Son and the Good Samaritan. 
The one would contain my theology, and the other 
my morality. Most theological questions may be 
answered out of the first. For example: 1. What 
is sin ? It is to take your portion of goods, and 
go off to spend it on yourself, away from God. 



THE GOOD SAMARITAN. 339 

2. What is the punishment of sin ? A mighty fam- 
ine, and absence of love; emptiness and loneliness. 

3. What is repentance ? Going to God, confessing 
one's sin, and wishing to be his servant. 4. What 
is God ? A father who loves his sinful child, and 
cares for him enough to come to meet him when 
he is a great way off. 

Thus, too, we can answer most moral questions 
out of the parable of the Samaritan. 

Notice first the man who fell among thieves. 
The man is the human soul. 

We all of us take our journey from Jerusalem 
to Jericho, and we all fall among thieves. Youth 
is our Jerusalem, — innocent youth, artless child- 
hood, affectionate, confiding, dependent. It is a 
city in which God dwells. In the child's heart 
is the holy of holies ; a sacred place, seldom en- 
tered, but containing the ark of the covenant, — 
the covenant between the Creator and his child. 
There is the budding rod of Aaron, fresh every 
morning with new buds of hope and opening flow- 
ers of expectation. We pass from Jerusalem to 
Jericho, — to Jericho, standing on the shores of 
the dead and bitter sea, but a city of palms and 
roses. 

We all go from Jerusalem to Jericho. We leave 
our childhood and our youth behind us, on our way 
to the ancient city where age and death are wait- 
ing for us, but where we may find the palms of 
immortal life and the roses of undying youth. 



340 E VERY-DAY RELIGION. 

And we fall among thieves by the way. Life 
itself is a thief, and steals from us strength, youth, 
beauty, power of body and mind, — the externals, 
the raiment of the soul. The world is another 
thief, and steals our simplicity, steals our innocence, 
wounds us in its bard struggles, and leaves us 
scarred, hard, and harsh; cold, selfish, and suspi- 
cious. Sinful habit is another thief, who takes 
from us the power and the wish to reform, and so 
leaves us half dead by the wayside. We cover up 
these wounds ; we are too proud to let it be known 
that we wish for sympathy or need help. Each 
one knows the bitterness of his own heart, but we 
do not see what is in the heart of our neighbors. 
They look so serene and self-satisfied that we think 
they are so. We do not suppose that they need us 
at all, or that tbey wish for any sympathy of ours. 

Oh, my brothers and sisters ! as we look about us 
on our fellow-creature§, let us think that every one 
has his own secret sorrow. This will lead us into 
a broader sympathy. That man, who seems so suc- 
cessful, has his bitter disappointments. You see 
his outward triumphs, — his offices, his titles, his 
wealth ; but if you looked into his heart you would 
find, perhaps, an aching wound. Perhaps the son, 
for whom he labored, whom he expected to take 
his place and inherit his name, was snatched away 
by an early death, and wherever he goes he sees 
the face of his boy. Perhaps he needs love, and 
that is the one thins he cannot have. Crowds 



THE GOOD SAMARITAN. 341 

applaud his eloquence, but he would give it all for 
one look of sincere affection. Perhaps there is an 
undying remorse in his heart for one false step 
which can never be blotted out or recalled. See 
that woman, so gay and witty, the brilliant orna- 
ment of every circle ; she is perishing with hunger ; 
she has nothing to live for; she has thrown away 
her life, and does not know that if she will she 
can find it again, and that Christ can give it to her 
more abundantly if she will really, with sincerity, 
come to him. We are all wounded, naked, hungry, 
half dead, and all need the good helping hand, and 
kind loving eye and word. 

N" otice again the Priest and the Levite. 

The Priest represents formal religion of all kinds ; 
the religion of ceremony, the religion of dogma, the 
religion of sentimentalism, — the religions which 
have no love in them. 

These pass by on the other side. One man tells 
you that God cannot love you unless you have the 
right belief. Another says, " Join my church ; it is 
the only true church." But all this is the other 
side of the road. We lie half dead with our sins. 
What we need is to hear a kind voice and have a 
helping hand put out to us. " Show me, Priest, 
how I can escape from my misery ; how this hun- 
ger in my heart can be stilled ; how I can go back 
to my Father's house ! What do I care for creeds 
and ceremonies ? I am cold and naked and starved ! 
I need love, truth, God ! Bring me to him ! " And 



342 E VERY-DAY RELIGION. 

the Priest replies, " What do you think about the 
Trinity and Atonement ? " and so passes on the 
other side. 

The chief difficulty with our religion is that it is 
too stiff and formal; it is put away by itself, as 
something for Sundays ; it does not show us God, as 
Paul said, " not far from any one of us," in the deep 
blue sky, in the glowing sunlight, in the music and 
poetry which touch our inmost hearts, in the love 
of a dear friend, in the hand which touches ours in 
our sorrow with a magnetic thrill of sympathy, — a 
hand which seems to have in it the sympathy of 
good men and women and the angels. This is God 
not far from us. And if a better thought or pur- 
pose arises in our heart, and we long to know and 
love God and goodness, this also is God, who 
touches the soul, as the musician the hard metallic 
strings of his harp, drawing out of them a harmony 
which they did not know they held. The harp 
stood voiceless and covered with dust for years, and 
thought itself without a voice. But one day the 
master comes, and draws from it symphonies of 
celestial joy, and makes it sing thanksgivings and 
allelujahs like those of heaven. Our heart is thus 
silent and thus dead till God touches it; then 
it finds itself able to rise into strains of peace, 
courage, hope, love. 

The Priest has come and gone. Absorbed in his 
dogmas and ritual, he does not even see the dying 
man. So our churches stand in the middle of the 



THE GOOD SAMARITAN. 343 

streets in which young men and women are being- 
led away to evil, and does not see them, or know 
anything of them. Such churches pass by on the 
other side. 

The Levite does a little more. He comes and 
looks on him, and then passes by also. Perhaps he 
is a moralist, an ethical philosopher, or a political 
economist, — a man whose religion is made up of 
reason, conscience, and the law of duty, but has no 
love in it. 

Pie looks at the man, and says : " He put himself 
into this difficulty. He ought to have been more 
careful. If I help him, he will probably fall again, 
so it will do no good. Perhaps he did something 
to provoke the robbers. There is usually wrong on 
both sides. He is very likely an impostor, who 
only pretends to be in trouble to get help ; or per- 
haps he is a bad man who is thus punished by 
Providence for his sins, and I ought not to interfere 
between him and divine justice; and, now that I 
come to notice it, I see he is no neighbor of mine — 
he is a heretic ! He belongs to the school of 
Hillel ; or perhaps lie is a Sadducee. It is better 
for the world that he should die, and so an end of 
him and his heresies. Besides, charity begins at- 
home. If I stop to help him, the robbers will very 
likely come back. My life is more valuable than 
his. I think, therefore, it is my evident duty to go 
to Jericho, and attend to my appointments there, 
for I am already behind my time." 



344 E VERY-DAY RELIGION. 

So the Levite speaks to us out of that barren, 
rocky defile, through the intervening period of eigh- 
teen centuries. Are not we often Levites, too ? 

The Priest has gone on. The Levite has gone 
on. The wounded man lies still, and groaning in 
his anguish. Minute by minute he is growing 
weaker. He thinks of his wife ; and of his children 
who are playing around the door, all unconscious 
of his misery. His wife is going about the house 
busily engaged in her affairs. He wonders when 
they will hear of his death, and who will tell 
them. He looks up and sees a cloud drifting peace- 
fully along through the sky. " Will no one go and 
tell them that I am dying here ? " No. The desert 
is silent ; no one comes. He listens. He seems to 
hear something like the step of a beast among the 
rocks. Yes ! some one approaches. " It is a Sa- 
maritan. Only a man belonging to the barbarous 
infidels who live at Sychar. He will do nothing for 
me, a Jew." 

But the Samaritan comes near, and now the 
man has found a friend who does not think of the 
robbers, or the danger, or the delay to his jour- 
ney, his distance from his own home, or the Jews' 
hostility to him, or whether his money will hold 
out, or the thousand other excellent excuses which 
men make for not doing their duty. He is the 
man's neighbor now, for the man needs him ; no 
matter what at other times is their relation to each 
other. 



THE GOOD SAMARITAN. 345 

See how deep this man's motive must have gone. 
How much Jesus has contrived to tell us in these 
few lines ! 

Some men give because it is expected of them. 
They never take the initiative. They do not look 
out for opportunities. They wait till they are 
asked, and till public opinion requires it. But no 
public opinion required the Samaritan to help the 
traveller. If he had left him to die, no one would 
have known it — no one but himself and God ! It 
was not expected of a Samaritan to help a Jew; 
the Jews had no dealings with Samaritans. 

Some men are so absorbed in their own affairs 
that they do not notice the needs of others. We 
go to our business in the morning, stay there all 
day, come back tired at night, do the same next 
day, and have no time to think of our neighbor. 
The Samaritan was busy; he was on a journey. 
He had his own affairs to attend to. But he had 
a heart open and watchful, looking out for occa- 
sions of usefulness. To such a man opportunities 
come. 

Some men are so slow in making up their minds 
as to whether they ought to do anything, whether 
they can do anything, or, if so, how they can do it, 
that the time and the need pass by. But the Sa- 
maritan was prompt. One thing which enables a 
good man to act promptly is, that he does not have 
to stop and think how he is likely to be affected by 
what he does. He simply asks, is it right? "No 



846 E VERY-DAY RELIGION. 

summons, mocked by chill delay," finds him saying, 
"Come to-morrow." He does it now, at once. 
Promptness, therefore, is another element in Chris- 
tian charity. Do it to-day, and then you can do 
something else to-morrow. 

Some men and women never can help any one if 
it involves a sacrifice ; or, if they do, they talk about 
their sacrifices until we wish they had not made 
any. But others make sacrifices and never speak 
of them. I do not believe the Samaritan told, after 
he got home, of his great loss of time and vast out- 
lay of two pence to help the wounded man. A 
good man enjoys doing good. If it costs him any- 
thing, it is so much paid out for his own pleasure. 
Talk to him of his sacrifices, and he laughs at you. 
These are his indulgences. That is why Christian 
charity does not appear unto men to fast, but only 
unto its Father in heaven. 

When Jesus told this story of the good Samari- 
tan, it shocked the prejudices of the Jews who 
listened. A good Samaritan to them sounded as it 
would sound to Christian ears to speak of a good 
infidel, a good atheist. It cut across their preju- 
dices, and that was why Jesus selected the Samari- 
tan for his type of a good man. The lawyer, when 
asked to say who was the poor man's neighbor, 
could not make up his mind to say, " The Samari- 
tan ; " so he replied in a roundabout way, " He that 
showed mercy on him." 

We see, by this story, that our neighbor is the 



THE GOOD SAMARITAN. 347 

man whom we can help. Those are not our neigh- 
bors, who live near us, but those to whom we are 
brought near by sympathy. In this way the man 
who is a thousand miles off is perhaps more my 
neighbor than he who lives next door to me. I 
make men my neighbors when I take an interest in 
them. The soldiers in the Crimea were neighbors 
to Florence Nightingale. The insane people in 
Missouri or Borne were the neighbors of Dorothea 
Dix. The slaves in Georgia were neighbors to Dr. 
Ohanning. The men of Kansas were neighbors to 
Charles Sumner. Sir John Franklin and his crew 
were neighbors to Dr. Kane. When the Poles and 
the Greeks were struggling for their freedom, we 
felt that they were our neighbors and sent them 
aid. When the people of Ireland were perishing 
of famine, we sent the frigate "Jamestown" filled 
with corn, flour, and other provision for their help. 
Though we had never seen any of these people, 
they became our neighbors as soon as they needed 
our assistance. 

Thus it really depends on the helper whether 
neighborhoods shall exist. Not the man who is 
to be helped but the man who comes to help 
him makes the neighborhood. It is the Samaritan 
who was found to be the neighbor — not the Jew. 
He who shows mercy to us becomes our neighbor. 
He who feels for me, though a thousand miles off, 
is more my neighbor than the man I meet every 
day who does not care for me. 



848 E VERY-DAY RELIGION. 

Christianity, which enlarges the soul, makes a 
great neighborhood of mankind. The people of 
far Cathay became neighbors to Europe as soon 
as Christian missionaries went among them and 
brought back tidings of their needs. Thus neigh- 
borhoods expand indefinitely like circles in the 
water, which cross each other in all directions with- 
out interfering with or obliterating each other. We 
are attracted toward those whom we think ourselves 
able to assist, and they become neighbors by sym- 
pathy. There are also those who are spiritually 
our neighbors ; those whose minds and hearts need 
that help which we are able to render. He is a 
good Samaritan in the highest sense who can pour 
oil and wine into the wounds of the soul ; who, by 
a word spoken in season, of warning, counsel, conso- 
lation, encouragement, can give a new direction to 
our life, awaken within us the sense of responsi- 
bility, show us how to trust in God, and quicken 
us with a new hope. But how few are neighbors 
to each other in this way. Too seldom do we 
know what is passing in the minds of others, and 
too often we distrust our own power of helping 
them. 

Some men who would like to be of use in the 
world, fail in their endeavor because they finish 
nothing. Their good actions are like buildings 
begun on a grand scale, but where the funds 
have given out before they were completed. Such 
a building as this, begun, but remaining unfinished, 



THE GOOD SAMARITAN. 349 

is apt to be called a man's "Folly." Some men 
do enough to satisfy their consciences and then 
stop, leaving their good works unfinished. They 
have had the trouble of .attempting to do good, and 
none of the satisfaction of accomplishment. So 
their action stands as their half-built folly. How 
many of these unfinished good works we do ! We 
work a little while for different objects, — take our 
class in the Sunday school, or engage in a hospital 
or some charity, and then stop and say, "Now I 
have done my part ; let some one else do the rest." 
But Christianity counts nothing done while any- 
thing remains to be done. The Samaritan might 
have bound up the wounds and then said, " I have 
done my duty ; let some one else take him to the 
inn." But his object was not to do his duty, but 
to save the man. That is the difference between 
conscience and charity. 

How often, when we are asked to subscribe to 
this or that good object, we reply, " This is an excel- 
lent object. I heartily approve of it, but the fact 
is," I have had a great many calls lately, and have 
been giving a great deal. Go to some one else." 
We forget that if we have been giving much we 
have also been receiving much. 

The old Latin proverb says, Qui suadet, sua det, — 
" If you ask others, give yourself." A man who 
obeys that maxim, and who begins by giving his 
own share, can then ask others with an easy mind, 
and is very likely to succeed in his applications. 



350 E VERY-DAY RELIGION. 

What we see, therefore, in this example is the 
superiority of love to all other motives. It is better 
than conscience, because it never tires till the good 
is done ; it is better than sympathy, for it remem- 
bers the absent as well as those present ; it is better 
than the desire to save one's soul, which makes 
sacrifices and performs acts of self-denial ; for it is 
a self-forgetful giver. 

And, besides all this, it is universal. It makes 
no account of a man's race, or creed, or position in 
the community ; no account of his folly, ignorance, 
or sin. It does not ask whether he was to blame or 
not for what he suffers, but only, Does he suffer, and 
can I help him ? 



XXIII. 
BEGINNING AT THE EIGHT END. 



XXIII. 

BEGINNING AT THE RIGHT END. 



" That ivas not first which is spiritual, but that which 
is natural, and aftemvard that which is spiritual." 

IN common life and practice we recognize the 
importance of beginning at the right end. 
There are strict, stern laws in nature which com- 
mand ns to follow the right order in all that we do ; 
which say "First the blade, then the ear, afterward 
the full corn in the ear." The farmer must plough 
before he can sow ; the builder must lay the founda- 
tion before he finishes the interior; the artist must 
make his sketches before he paints his landscape ; 
the physician must begin with a study of symptoms 
before he proceeds to his indications of cure ; the 
lawyer's brief must be prepared before he can argue 
his case. If you propose to build a railroad, you 
begin by making your surveys and selecting yonr 
route. In the domain of external nature every- 
thing must be in its own order, — this thing first 
and that second. 

23 



854 E VERY-DAY RELIGION. 

When we come to work done in the soul of man, 
the same is true. The same law of method applies, 
and it is because we do not see clearly the mental 
and moral processes in the human mind that we 
fail to perceive this fact. Mistakes and harm come 
from trying to do the second thino- before we have 
done the first, and not taking everything in its own 
order. 

The law of mental progress is that one should 
begin with the easy and go on to the difficult ; be- 
gin with the simple, and proceed to the complex; 
begin with the concrete fact, and go on to the ab- 
stract law ; become familiar with the first step 
before proceeding to the second. When this law is 
neglected in education the result is unfortunate. 
If you try to teach little children the abstractions 
of grammar, of logic, of history, instead of simple 
facts and laws, you stupefy the poor things ; you do 
not teach them. You can compel them to repeat, 
by rote, abstract rules, and to give learned answers 
to your questions ; but the little child does not learn 
anything. He is repeating words without sense. 
But when you begin at the right end in teaching, 
and follow the method of nature, how fast and how 
gladly the child learns ! Each new acquisition of 
knowledge connects itself with what went before, 
and grows naturally out of it, roots itself naturally 
in it. Having taken the first step, the second be- 
comes easy, and then the third follows as a matter 
of course. 



BEGINNING AT THE RIGHT END. 355 

The best illustration of this is mathematics. How 
incredible it seems that man should be able to cal- 
culate an eclipse a thousand years beforehand ; to 
measure the distance of the sun and stars ; to weigh 
the planets in scales, and the moon in a balance ; to 
survey the pathless march of a comet from outside 
darkness till it falls toward the sun. The North 
American Indian tracks his foe through the woods 
by the slight indications of a broken twig or a stone 
turned over by the foot. But the astronomer tracks 
his planet, as it pursues its way through space, 
where no eye has ever seen it, and where it leaves 
no visible trace of its path, — he tracks it by the 
slight quivering produced by its attraction on an- 
other planet, one hundred millions of miles away. 
Now, this is all done by beginning at the right end ; 
by first adding one to two, and then two to three. 
It is by taking a great many steps, each one of 
which is simple and easy ; for if taken in proper 
order each one prepares the way for the next. 

Now, when God, in his providence, sent Chris- 
tianity into the world, he proceeded on the same 
plan. He sent other religions before it to prepare 
its way. That was not first which was spiritual, 
but that which was natural, and afterward that 
which was spiritual. The law was a schoolmaster 
to bring us to Christ. Moses came first, to prepare 
the way by his ten commandments ; and then the 
prophets followed, taking another step up out of 
the religion of form into the religion of spirit ; and 



356 E VERY-DAY RELIGION. 

then came John the Baptist, to prepare the way of 
the Lord, and make his paths straight ; and at last, 
when the fulness of time had come, God sent forth 
his Son. We all admit that the religion of Moses 
was preparatory to that -of Christ. But more is 
true. God did not disinherit the rest of the human 
race ; he gave them their religions too. Confucius 
in China ; Zoroaster in Persia ; the Yedas in India ; 
the religions of Egypt, Greece, Bome ; the philoso- 
phy of Anaxagoras, Socrates, Zeno, Plato, — these 
were all stepping-stones by which humanity crossed 
the abyss of darkness and evil, and came up toward 
the Son of Man. Inconceivably grand does the 
character of Jesus appear when thus regarded as 
the summit of humanity, as the fulfilment of Pagan 
as well as Jewish prophecy ; as the Christ foretold 
by the Gentiles as well as by the Jews ; as 

" One far-off divine event, 
To which the whole creation moves." 

God, in teaching religion to mankind, began with 
primary schools. Confucius taught, in one, respect 
for parents and superiors. Zoroaster taught, in an- 
other, to think purely, speak purely, and act purely. 
Buddha taught, in another, the immutability of law 
and the certainty of retribution. We may even say 
that as we now teach little children by object les- 
sons, so Divine Providence used a similar method, 
and allowed the infantile mind of the race visible 
and objective prayers. Men were allowed to say 
their prayers by outward sacrifices. If a man was 



BEGINNING AT THE RIGHT END. 357 

grateful, he offered a bullock as a thank-offering to 
God ; if he was penitent, he brought a lamb as a 
sin-offering. This may be called the liturgy of the 
whole ethnic or Gentile world. Only the Persians 
did without it, for they had their diviner symbols 
in the skies. The sun, the moon, the planets, the 
flaming star Sirius, — these made their ritual ser- 
vices; the mountains were their temples, and an 
ever-burning fire their prayer-book. Thus did hu- 
manity worship, in its simple- childhood, — sincerely 
but ignorantly ; but when Jesus came, humanity 
became a man, and put away childish things. It 
passed out of object lessons into books ; out of the 
primary school into the grammar school and high 
school. The day for sacrifices and a sacrificial wor- 
ship was over. " Neither in this mountain, nor yet 
at Jerusalem, shall men worship the Father/' but 
only in spirit and in truth. 

But afterward the Church made the same mistake 
which we make in our schools when we teach little 
children abstractions instead of concrete facts. 

For example, the little children in the Boston 
grammar schools have been taught till recently and 
perhaps are still taught such lessons as these: — 

" A consonant denotes a contact of some of the 
organs of speech." 

" Etymology treats of the true roots and the true 
and right forms of words to put in sentences ac- 
cording to syntax." 

"A participle is a form of the word which merely 



358 EVERY-DAY RELIGION. 

assumes the act or state, and is construed like an 
adjective." 

Most of the English grammar taught in our 
schools consists of such stupidities as this, the 
knowledge of which we may safely say never did 
practical good to any human being. Xo one ever 
spoke or wrote English more correctly in conse- 
quence of having committed to memory such dis- 
mal abstractions. But as it has been done for a 
long time, it will probably continue to be done for 
a great while longer. At all events, this is not 
the proper teaching to begin with. It may pos- 
sibly be interesting to a man who is fifty or sixty 
years old to know that the " superlative degree rep- 
resents the described objects as being a part of the 
others ; " but it can do no good, surely, to a small 
boy to learn that extraordinary statement. 

Now, just as the school has put its little learners 
into these abstractions of grammar, the Church has 
put its little Christians into similar abstractions 
of theology. Men inculcate the most abstruse and 
self- contradictory doctrines about the Trinity, total 
depravity, and divine decrees, with a charming sim- 
plicity, as though they were elementary facts of 
morals and piety. Before a man can enter the 
Church, which he is supposed to join in order to 
learn how to be a Christian, he must already be a 
believer in these recondite abstractions. This is 
worse than the schools, for even the grammar 
schools do not require a knowledge of the pluper- 



BEGINNING AT THE RIGHT END. 859 

feet potential as a condition of admission. The 
Church demands, as a condition of admission, faith 
in the very articles it proposes to teach. 

The fault I find with creeds is, that they begin 
at the wrong end. There is no serious objection to 
aged theologians settling among themselves God's 
plan of salvation; but surely this is not milk for 
babes. 

The wisdom of Jesus appears in the simplicity of 
his teaching. He put his thought into lovely par- 
ables ; stories founded on life ; illustrations of truth 
taken from dinner-parties, baking, the farmer's 
work in the field, the woman's work in the kitchen. 
He taught the loftiest truths, not in dry abstrac- 
tions, but in the hieroglyphics of dawn and night, 
of flowers and birds, of the instincts of the dog and 
the swine, the law of growth in corn and vine. 
With him, that was not first which was spiritual, 
but that which was natural, and afterward that 
which was spiritual. 

The Apostle Paul is usually considered as fond 
of teaching deep and difficult doctrine, but he was a 
man of admirable common sense. When he wrote 
what is to us so difficult, you may be sure that 
those who received his letters were quite able to 
understand his meaning. You must recollect that 
the Epistles to the Eomans, Galatians, and Philip- 
pians were not written by Paul with the expectation 
that they were to make part of the sacred literature 
of the human race. He did not write them as 



360 EVERY-DAY RELIGION. 

treatises for all time, but as answers to questions, 
and solutions of difficulties, existing in particular 
churches. His plan of teaching he explains at the 
beginning of the Epistle to the Corinthians. He 
there says : I came not to you with excellency of 
speech (that is, rhetoric) or wisdom (that is, 
logic). I made no oration nor speech. I only 
preached Jesus Christ and him crucified; that 
is, the simple story of the facts of the life and 
death of Jesus. So your faith was not founded on 
argument or demonstration, but on pure conviction. 
It was not theology, but religion. He says that 
with more advanced Christians he has a theology 
and a philosophy of Christianity, — a philosophy 
deeper than that of the sophists of Greece. But 
these infant Christians he feeds with milk and not 
meat ; simple facts, not deep philosophy. 

The law of culture is to begin at the beginning. 
Thus, in belief, let us begin at the beginning. Infi- 
delity often consists in thinking that we ought to 
swallow the last thing in Christianity before we 
have really digested the first. A young man says 
he is an infidel. Why ? Because he cannot, for 
example, understand the story of Balaam's ass, or 
that of Jonah and the whale, or because of the 
apparent contradictions in the history of the New 
Testament or Old Testament. But he does not 
refuse to accept Greek and Boman history because 
of similar contradictions and obscurities. He be- 
gins with the plain and consistent, and leaves the 



BEGINNING AT THE RIGHT END. 361 

rest to follow. I have had little boys, ten and 
twelve years old, come to me, much troubled in 
mind, and thinking that their religion was giving 
way, because they could not reconcile divine fore- 
knowledge and human freedom. But there is 
enough in Christianity which is plain. Take the 
Sermon on the Mount, take the parables of the 
Talents, and the Prodigal Son, and the Good Samar- 
itan. What should you say of your son if he 
should renounce his multiplication table because 
he could not comprehend La Place ; who should 
proclaim himself an infidel to the Eule of Three 
because of obscurities in Newton's Principia ? 

Begin at the beginning ; believe first that which 
is simple ; make that thoroughly your own, carry it 
out in action and life, and leave the five points of 
Calvinism till you are forty or fifty years old ; the 
brain does not grow too dry for those husks at any 
period of life. 

We all ought to be doing something for our 
Master and his cause. How can we call ourselves 
Christians if we merely live on, getting and spend- 
ing, dressing and eating, amusing ourselves, reading 
novels, and so drift through life ? Suppose a man 
wishes to be a Christian, how shall he set about 
it ? Shall he go from church to church ? shall he 
wait for a revival ? shall he struggle to go through 
some great change ? No. He must do wdiat he 
can. He must repent as the Prodigal Son repented, 
who simply said, " I will arise and go to my father." 



362 E VERY-DAY RELIGION. 

He must become a Christian as Matthew and Peter 
became Christians, by beginning to follow Christ ; 
he must do good, as the Good Samaritan did it, by 
helping the first man he found lying in his path as 
he went to his affairs. He must pray as the Pub- 
lican prayed, all whose prayer was contained in 
these seven words, — "God be merciful to me a 
sinner." He must be charitable as the widow was, 
who put into the treasury just what she happened 
to have, which was a farthing. The great thing is 
to make up our minds, once for all, to do what we 
can, not to wait, not to linger ; uot to think that some 
other time will be better than now, some other 
season more convenient than this, but to determine 
every morning to take the opportunities the day 
may bring of serving Christ. 

So, in piety and prayer, we ought to begin at the 
beginning. It is a curious fact that the Church has 
often solemnly taught that men must be^in at the 
end. Eminent theologians have said that one must 
not pray at all till converted and regenerate. Some 
unregenerate persons prayed to Christ when he was 
in the world, and he answered their prayer. The 
Eoman centurion, who worshipped Jupiter and 
Mars; the woman of Phoenicia, who worshipped 
Baal and " Astarte's bediamonded crescent," — these 
prayed to Jesus and he helped them. But God, it 
seems, is not so condescending; he can only hear 
the prayers of good men. Many persons are taught 
to believe that they cannot pray aright till they 



BEGINNING AT THE RIGHT END. 363 

are miraculously transformed and renewed. But our 
motto says, " That is not first which is spiritual, but 
that which is natural." Natural prayer must pre- 
cede spiritual. Begin by seeing God in nature, in 
providence, in life ; begin by saying, " God help 
me;" <: I thank thee, O Father;" by saying, " God 
forgive me ; " so a habit of prayer is formed, growing 
purer, loftier, more constant, more prevailing, more 
spiritual. It will be pervaded with the spirit of 
brotherhood, fellowship, and charity. God asks 
nothing of us that he is not ready to help us do. 
He asks nothing but what it is good for us to do. 
And our first duty, under the Gospel of Christ, is 
not to be afraid of God. Keligious teaching, or that 
which is called so, makes God terrible ; but Gospel 
teaching does not. The power of the Gospel con- 
sists in enabling us to say, Abba, Father ; when it 
has taught us to say that, it has done its work. It 
has then converted us, and made us like little chil- 
dren, and so we can see the kingdom of heaven. 

This word Abba, " papa," the first cry of the de- 
pendent infant, is also the last attainment of the 
highest piety. It needs God's spirit and Christ's gos- 
pel to bring us back to that elementary sound, and 
enable us to say to the almighty and infinite Being 
this little word, Abba. It requires that perfect love 
which casts out all fear. It is the simplest state of 
mind, and, therefore, often the hardest. The word 
which is very nigh to us, in our mouth and our 
heart, is the very one we do not find. So we have 



364 E VERY-DAY RELIGION. 

seen persons looking for that which they were hold- 
ing in their hand. 

"A man's best things are nearest him, 
Lie close about his feet." 

And, lastly, let love begin at the beginning. The 
law says, " Love God with all the heart," and many 
think because they cannot love him so, they cannot 
love him at all. But does a father or mother criti- 
cise the love of their child ? Are you not glad to 
have your child trust you ? You do not wish him 
to be running up all the time to tell you of it. The 
child rambles over the house or through the field, 
about his small affairs all day. But the mother 
does not doubt his love ; one kiss at night before he 
goes to sleep is enough. God does not doubt our 
love because we are not all the time telling him of 
it. No. He wishes us to learn how to love hira 
by loving each other. Love to God and man, 
Jesus tells us, are the same feeling directed to differ- 
ent objects. There is a text which seems almost 
to have been forgotten, and that is the passage in 
John, " He that loveth not his brother whom he hath 
seen, how shall he love God whom he hath not 
seen ? " We climb up to the love of God by the 
love of man. Every pure, generous, unselfish throb 
of affection and act of good-will toward man lifts 
us nearer to God. Piety grows out of charity. 
That love is not first which is spiritual, but that 
which is natural, and afterward that which is spir- 
itual. Follow the order of Nature. Instead of 



BEGINNING AT THE RIGHT END. 365 

making it a task to pray to God and to feel emotion 
toward him, take the first steps toward him by 
loviog and serving man. Forget yourself, my dear 
brother, my dear sister, — forget yourself in the need 
of some one else ; then you will find yourself com- 
ing nearer to God. 

A little child said to its mother, " Mamma, have 
angels wings ? " " Yes, my clear ; why do you ask ? " 
" Because if they have wings, I do not see why 
they needed a ladder to come down to Jacob." But 
perhaps even angels need ladders ; perhaps we all 
must help ourselves up or down, step by step. We 
must do the simplest thing first, then take the next 
step. We have no wings with which to fly up to 
God and heaven, so we must be satisfied to go a 
little distance each day. The Christian Church 
has not yet learned the fable of the hare and the 
tortoise. It sometimes prefers an occasional revival 
to a steady growth. But the " Tortoise Christian," 
doing with his might what his hand finds to do 
every day, will be very apt to reach the goal before 
the " Hare Christian," who waits for a revival. 

"It is not to be like a tree 
In bulk, doth make man better be, 
Or standing like an oak, three hundred year, 
To fall a log at last, dry, bald, and sere. 
A lily of a day 
Is fairer far in May. 
Although it fall and die that night, 
It was the plant and flower of Light ? 
In small proportions we just beauties see, 
And in short measures life may perfect be." 



XXIV. 

THE HEAVENS AND HELLS OF THE 
PRESENT LIFE. 



XXIV. 

THE HEAVENS AND HELLS OF THE 
PRESENT LIFE. 



" If I ascend into heaven, thou art there ; if I make 
my bed in hell, thou art there ahoy 

IT is commonly taught and believed that heaven 
and hell are two regions of the universe, widely 
and forever separated from each other by exter- 
nal barriers, into which human beings are to be 
distributed hereafter, after death; and, having 
once entered either, in that they are to remain for- 
ever. I think these positions to be unfounded. I 
do not believe that heaven and hell are widely 
separated in space, but that they are often close to 
each other, so that persons in hell can converse with 
those in heaven, and vice versa, as Father Abraham 
and Dives conversed in the parable. Nor do I 
believe that we are to wait until we reach another 
world before we enter heaven or hell. I think we 
may and do often go into heaven and hell now. 
Nor do I admit the pure assumption of theology 
that those who go into heaven or into hell are never 

24 



370 E VERY-DAY RELIGION. 

to come out again. I believe that the Gospel 
assumes, by its teachings and blessed invitations, 
that we can rise out of hell and go up into heaven ; 
and it also assumes, by its solemn warnings, that 
we may sink back out of heaven into hell. 

For what is hell, and what is heaven? Essen- 
tially, and in themselves, what are they ? Primarily 
and essentially, they are inward states, conditions 
of the soul; secondarily, they are the external 
results of those states. Heaven is love, knowl- 
edge, power, combined, — generous love, guided by 
wise insight, and made effectual by unfaltering 
energy. Wherever this exists the essence of heaven 
exists, for this state of soul is the image and reflec- 
tion of God, in whom love, wisdom, and power are 
one. Such a soul is in heaven, for it is in con- 
tinued communion with God. Such a soul makes 
heaven around it, wherever it is, for it influences 
other open souls inevitably and necessarily. 

And what is hell but the presence of the opposite 
spirit, — wilful, hard, selfish, stubborn; wilfulness 
instead of energy, stupid prejudice instead of in- 
sight, hard selfishness instead of generosity. From 
a mean, cold, cruel soul hell is radiated; the black- 
ness of darkness goes out from it. The brutal man 
carries an atmosphere of brutality around him, and 
creates a like state of mind in others. 

You enter one house, and you are in an atmos- 
phere of peace. All is harmony and good-will. 
Father and mother, brothers and sisters, are inter- 



THE HEAVENS AND HELLS. 371 

ested in the same good objects, caring for what is 
really important; and each, in his own way, is pur- 
suing some good end. No mean ambition, no poor 
vanity, no low and mean passions can enter that 
home. It is a little heaven here below. 

You go into another house. The atmosphere is 
full of fear, hatred, and cruelty. The husband is a 
brute, the wife and children slaves ; or the wife is 
frivolous and false, and her falsehood poisons the 
home. Or perhaps one of the children has been 
misled by bad companions, and he is a source of 
constant anxiety to the rest. 

Every now and then these smouldering hells 
break out into an eruption of crime, as a sleeping 
volcano, after long quiet, suddenly vomits forth 
a destructive fire. We read in the journals, some 
morning, of a drunken brute kicking his wife to 
death, or murdering a little child, and a great horror 
goes out over the community. The hell which was 
in the man's soul has broken loose, and out of that 
one black heart, ulcerated with sin, a blackness of 
darkness has gone forth over the whole community ! 
What a sense of evil has come over us all ! In 
that great horror we see manifested the mysterious 
pang which belongs to sin. It is not like any other. 
It is a breaking out of hell. 

But wherever hell goes, heaven goes too. They 
are side by side in the world, — producing bitter 
evils ; sending also blessed consolations. Where 
sin abounds, grace more abounds. 



872 EVERY-DAY RELIGION. 

I have lately been reading some parts of Dr. 
Livingstone's last journals in Africa. They are 
filled with the sense of the miseries inflicted on 
Africa by the slave trade as it is carried on by the 
Arabs in the East, Every year whole villages are 
depopulated, thousands cruelly murdered, multi- 
tudes of young girls and young men carried off 
to the Mohammedan slave-markets. Dr. Living- 
stone's soul was darkened by the perpetual pres- 
ence of this foul curse, — the wretchedness caused 
by this terrific evil, the root of which is human 
greed and human sensuality. As we read the book, 
we seem to be alternately in hell and in heaven. 
We are in hell when we see all these cruelties ; we 
are in heaven when we feel the presence of this 
noble soul, devoting itself to the redemption of 
Africa, Here is a life fitly lived ! Here is a man 
who has given himself in pure, disinterested labors 
to find out the evils and woes of a continent, and 
to bring the power of the Gospel to bear on it for 
its rescue. Here is a missionary who shows us 
again that Christianity is not dead in the world or 
in the soul of man ; but that, in the nineteenth cen- 
tury, as in the first, it can inspire human hearts 
with an energy of love which reaches the utmost 
boundaries of self-surrender permitted by the limi- 
tations of the human mind. Here is a man who 
repeats the story of the Apostle Paul : " In journey- 
ings often, in perils of waters, in perils of robbers, 
in perils by mine own countrymen, in perils by the 



THE HEAVENS AND HELLS. 373 

heathen, in perils in the city, in perils in the wilder- 
ness, in perils in the sea, in perils among false 
brethren ; in weariness and painfullness, in watch- 
ings often, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often, in 
cold and nakedness." Never, for a moment, did it 
occur to him to relinquish his work and return 
home, and rest from his labors with his family. 
He thought nothing done while anything" remained 
to be done. He had penetrated to the centre of the 
Gospel ; he had passed through the shell of cere- 
mony and creed to its living kernel. He says in 
his journal, a few weeks before his death, " What is 
the atonement of Christ but himself, — his own 
life and death and character, showing the infinite 
love of God to all his children, and drawing all to 
himself, not by fear, but by goodness ? " With all 
this energy of devotion to his work, there was no 
fanaticism or cant, but wisdom and good sense. 
His burning zeal did not make him narrow ; he was 
a broad, liberal Christian in the best sense. His 
first object was to interest all good men in the sal- 
vation of Africa; his second was to enlarge the 
boundaries of human knowledge. He gave his life 
for both objects. And this heaven in the soul of 
Livingstone diffused itself to those around him. 
Wherever he went he made friends among the most 
savage tribes. In him was fulfilled the saying, 
."Touch not ray apostles, do my prophets no harm." 
No one could harm him, protected as he was by his 
own generous purpose as by a seven-fold shield. 



374 EVERY-DAY RELIGION. 

He overcame evil by good. The fierce tribes of 
Africa, maddened as they were by centuries of 
oppression, became mild in the presence of this 
lonely white man, trusting himself without hesita- 
tion in their midst. Wherever he went, he was 
received with hospitality and dismissed with bless- 
ing. He died in the heart of Africa, five hundred 
miles from the sea, with no one near him but his 
negro servants. Then was seen the influence which 
goodness exercises over the human soul. Then was 
shown again what a heavenly virtue goes out from 
a heart in which heaven reigns. These poor, igno- 
rant Africans, after carefully collecting their mas- 
ter's papers and instruments, took his body on 
their shoulders and marched that long weary way 
through forests and swamps, the wilderness and 
hostile tribes, till they faithfully delivered their 
burden at the Eno-lish settlement on the ocean. 
Such was the power over these simple hearts of 
their dead master's character. The heaven in his 
soul radiated into theirs and lifted them above 
themselves. 

During the past few weeks we have had an accu- 
mulation of horrors. The dreadful loss of the ocean 
steamer, the discovery of the corruption of the rev- 
enue service by the whiskey ring, a tragedy in our 
neighborhood, and recent destructive conflagrations 
make a mass of evil which recalls the Master's words, 
" This is the hour of the power of darkness." 2 

1 Thia was written in May, 1875. 



THE HEAVENS AND HELLS. 375 

The sting of this sorrow has been the sin con- 
tained in it. It was so in the loss of the " Schiller," 
which was caused directly by a standing pecuniary 
reward offered by the United States Government 
to the vessel which shall make the quickest pas- 
sage, though at the risk of the loss of human life. 
Had it not been for that offer, no captain would 
have continued running on in a fog, when he knew 
that a dangerous coast and cruel rocks could 
not be far off. But had we been able to look 
upon that scene, amid its terror and suffering, we 
should no doubt have seen some manifestation of 
a heavenly strength, — women upheld in peace and 
composure, helping those who were weaker than 
themselves. God always sends in such hours some 
radiance of courage, generosity, care for others, for- 
getfulness of self, which shows the supremacy of 
the human soul over outward disaster and out- 
ward suffering. 

The nation has recently been disgraced by the 
discovery of a system of corruption reaching through 
a whole department of the United States Govern- 
ment. Those who are paid by the United States to 
protect its interests have been bribed to betray it, 
so that the Government has been obliged carefully 
to conceal from its own officials its plans for de- 
tecting these frauds of the whiskey manufacturers. 
The system of allowing members of Congress to 
appoint men to office as a reward for political ser- 
vices has borne its appropriate fruits. These poli- 



376 E VERY-DAY RELIGION. 

ticians, as soon as they were appointed, proceeded 
to plunder the Government which they are paid to 
serve. The great Republican party, with its glo- 
rious record, is like the man in the parable, who fell 
among thieves. These thieves have left it wounded, 
stripped of its proud record, and half dead. And 
yet, though the times are so bad, there remain some 
upright souls. There are some who have been able 
to detect and expose and punish these robbers ; men 
who can act without fear or favor. And the great 
body of the people are ready to support such men. 
The republic which has conquered slavery and its 
allies is not to be destroyed by these plunderers of 
the public treasury. It has fought and defeated 
the bold highway robbers who took it by the throat 
and threatened its life ; ha vino- done that, it will be 
able, I think, to save itself from the hands of these 
professional pickpockets, even though they are 
backed up by the professional politicians. 

Thus the hells and heavens are around us, and 
we pass out of one into another ; first being over- 
shadowed by the blackness of hell, and then illu- 
minated by the light of heaven. 

I remember how this contrast once came before 
me when I was travelling on a steamer on the 
Mississippi River. At one end of the saloon were 
some professional gamblers, playing cards and filling 
their conversation with blasphemy. At the other 
end were some men and women, Methodists, who 
were singing hymns in a low voice. As I walked 



THE HEAVENS AND HELLS. 377 

up and down the saloon, I would come now to the 
singers, and catch a few words of their songs of 
praise and trust, and then I would pass on to the 
other end of the room, and hear the profanity and 
ribaldry of the gamblers ; and it seemed to me as 
though I were walking to and fro between heaven 
and hell. 

The breaking out of hell is quick, violent, 
abrupt; it suddenly overflows the land with its 
dark shadow of guilt and sin, and fills all hearts 
with sadness. It is like the breaking away of a 
milldam, letting its waters sweep in a broad flood 
of sudden desolation over many miles of the quiet 
valley. But heaven comes to us more gently and 
gradually, like the soft-falling rain, which moistens 
the soil, and feeds the grass and grain and trees 
with a quiet power. Sin breaks forth like lightning 
to shatter and destroy; goodness comes like soft 
sunshine gently penetrating the earth. When a 
crime is committed, it is telegraphed over the land, 
and is in the newspapers, and men are talk- 
ing of it at once, and all faces gather sadness. 
But when an act of generosity, of faith, of self- 
sacrifice, is done, who hears of it ? When tempta- 
tion is resisted and conquered, who telegraphs the 
notice of it over the country ? When, in the depths 
of the soul, a man gives himself to God, to truth, 
to righteousness, what city reporters hurry with the 
news to the papers ? " The kingdom of heaven 
comes not with observation, neither do men say, Lo 



378 EVERY-DAY RELIGION. 

here ! or Lo there ! for it is within you." Yet it 
may be that in this very hour there is some young 
man or young woman quietly and calmly deciding 
to devote all of life to God and to truth ; and from 
that decision there may go forth a power for good 
greater than the power for evil in the crimes which 
will be committed to-day, and which will shock us 
when we read of them to-morrow. 

When Jesus was crucified, it appeared as if all 
the hope of man was to be buried in his grave. 
Here was the one pure and perfect soul, who had 
seen the fact that God's love could conquer evil, 
who had in himself a spiritual force capable of con- 
vincing and converting the world to the love and 
service of goodness ; and he was crucified when his 
work was seemingly just begun. No wonder that, 
to the minds of his friends, there seemed to be a 
great darkness over the land from the sixth hour 
till the ninth. The hells of this world appeared to 
have broken loose. But Jesus had really finished 
his work ; he had planted good seed ; and it iad put 
down its roots and sent up its stalk, and at last had 
expanded into blossom and fruit, and into other 
seeds. Or, we may say that to some honest souls 
he had imparted the leaven of faith. This had 
not come with observation ; it seemed a very little 
thing. It was leaven hid in three measures of 
meal ; but it worked on and on silently, till the 
whole mass of the vast Eoman Empire, with its 
twenty provinces and its thirty legions of soldiers, 



THE HEAVENS AND HELLS. 379 

its imperial court and its majestic religion, was 
leavened with the truth and love of the Gospel. 

God sometimes permits the hell of sin in the soul 
to break out into the hell of outward crime, in order 
that its evil may be seen and deeply felt, and so at 
last be overcome. For many years the system of 
slavery made a hell in many Southern homes, — a 
hell of cruelty, licentiousness, and suffering. At last 
this hell broke out in the Eebellion, and then the 
evil was clearly seen and conquered. It is often 
better that sin should show itself as crime, and 
thus its blackness and poisonous nature be known. 
When the man of sin is thus revealed, great suf- 
fering no doubt arises from its outbreak, — suffer- 
ing, terror, gloom, — but the air becomes purer 
afterwards. False disguises are taken away; hy- 
pocrisies and self-deceptions are removed ; truth 
sits in judgment, and lies and shams go to their 
own place. 

Jesus Christ came down into the world, says 
Emanuel Swedenborg, to enable the heavens to 
conquer the hells. The miseries of this world are 
permitted by God, to enable man to see and know 
evil, and freely choose the good. These woes and 
wrongs are very great ; they are purifying us with 
the fires of sorrow and anguish, breaking our hearts 
with the sense of irremediable loss, bowing us down 
with the weight of sin, crushing us beneath the 
heavy burden of care ; but all this is to prepare the 
way for a new and better life to come. 



380 EVERY-DAY RELIGION. 

I once saw in the Navy Yard at Washington the 
forging of an anchor by a steam hammer weighing 
between seven and eight tons. I saw the great iron 
log, a foot thick and twenty feet long, thrust into 
the dark mound of coal which covered the raging 
fires. Presently the windlass heaved it up, blind- 
ing bright with a white heat, and it was swung 
upon the anvil, and then a man turning a winch 
managed the rise and fall of the enormous hammer, 
which moved softly down its grooves so as to give 
gentle blows, or fell with crushing weight on the 
red-hot mass, hammering it into solid consistency. 
The poor iron, if it could have thought about it, 
might have considered its lot a hard one. " Why 
was I taken from my mine, where God had put me, 
to be melted in a furnace, and then to be thus 
heated in insufferable fires, and crushed by these 
terrible blows ? " And then it might be answered : 
" This stern experience is to make you strong, and 
fit you for a great work. You are thus made tena- 
cious and tough, in order to become a noble anchor, 
to hold amid the storm the tossing vessel which has 
drifted among breakers. On its lee will be the 
shore, over which, a 'cable's length off, the waves 
are bursting mast high, white with frightful death 
to all the crew. But you, anchor, made strong 
by this trial, shall hold them safe, because of the 
strength you have gained in this hell of fire. Your 
great flukes will cling firm to the bottom, the vessel 
will ride safely through the storm, held by your 



THE HEAVENS AND HELLS. 381 

unflinching resistance; and the lives of the men 
will be as safe as though they were sleeping in their 
own quiet homes, where their anxious wives look 
through the windows into the terrible night." 

So, perhaps, it will be with us. Thus shall the 
hammer and fire of God's providence try each of our 
souls, and make them strong for duties more noble 
and austere than we can now imagine. We may 
be fitted to become the anchors by which other 
souls shall ride safely in the storms of being. So, 
too, this nation, let us hope, tried by the lire of 
many a fearful danger, may grow strong and noble 
and generous ; may forget the things behind, and 
reach out to those before ; forget its idolatries of 
wealth and outward prosperity, its self-love and its 
foolish boasting, its injustice towards other races 
and nations, and be fitted for its destiny of becom- 
ing the Anchor of Hope to mankind. 



XXV. 
MORAL MECHANICS AND DYNAMICS. 



XXV. 

MORAL MECHANICS AND DYNAMICS. 



" The spirit of the living creature was in the wheels" 

THE parable of the wheels and the living creature 
within the wheels is a good illustration of the 
proper union of mechanical and vital forces. Ma- 
chinery is very important, but it must be directed 
by mind. There should always be the spirit of the 
living creature in the wheels. Machines are neces- 
sary, but there must be some vital force behind 
them. 

The power of the wheel is the same as that of 
the lever, with this difference only, that in the 
wheel, before one lever has ceased to act, another 
takes its place. Thus a wheel consists of a multi- 
tude of levers joined together. When the wheel 
was invented, a great step forward was taken in hu- 
man civilization. 

But all machines must have a power behind 
them to move, to guide, to restrain, else the ma- 
chinery is of no value. I propose to speak of the 
relations of machinery and vital forces in thought 

25 



886 E VERY-DAY RELIGION. 

and life ; or the machine in philosophy, morals, 
politics, and religion. 

What a wonderful thing is vital power ! In cross- 
ing the Atlantic we saw sea-gulls which attended 
the steamship day and night, on untiring wing, and 
we were told that they sometimes followed a vessel 
the whole way across the Atlantic. Consider the 
immense force in the little body which enables the 
bird to continue this unceasing flight ! 

A large part of the kingdom of Holland is from 
fifteen to twenty feet below high-water mark, or 
what is called the Amsterdam zero. The surplus 
water on the surface of the country must therefore 
be pumped up by numerous large windmills, and 
poured into the sea at low water by means of a 
system of canals. To accomplish this, engineers in 
all parts of the country are in constant telegraphic 
communication with a central office, from which, as 
from a brain, orders are sent to open the canal locks 
here, and close them there, so as to keep the waters 
everywhere at the proper level. Without such a 
perfect system Holland might at any time be inun- 
dated. But by this complex machinery the inhabi- 
tants live safely below the level of the ocean; 
because the spirit of the living creature is within 
the wheels ; because mind everywhere watches and 
controls mechanism. 

This illustrates the relation between mechanical 
and vital forces. Machinery must be governed and 
directed by mind. As long as man governs the 



MORAL MECHANICS AND DYNAMICS. 387 

machine, all goes well ; but as soon as the machine 
controls the man, danger begins. 

There are apparent exceptions to this. Some 
machines are ingeniously arranged so as to direct 
the man who watches them, and tell him what to do. 
A carpet-loom, for example, will tell the workman 
when to change the color of the wool. But this is 
no real exception to our rule, for, after all, it was 
mind which made and still governs the machine. 

The living animal is the most wonderful of ma- 
chines. Consider the human body, with its myste- 
rious organization, in which the brain, the lungs, 
the heart, the digestive organs, and the muscular 
system work harmoniously together for seventy 
years. The heart beats on, day and night, when 
we are awake or while we sleep, driving the blood 
through the minutest capillaries to be oxygenated 
in the lungs, to feed the brain, and supply nutri- 
ment to bone and muscle. The nutritive organs, 
in silent hidden action, change, by a strange chem- 
istry, food into blood. The arteries again carry to 
every part of the body the matter which renews its 
worn tissues and rebuilds its exhausted fibre. All 
this, and much more, goes on automatically in our 
body, without our knowing it or having to take any 
trouble about it. This has led some philosophers to 
say that man is wholly a machine, only an automa- 
ton. But, beside the machinery, there is the mar- 
vellous vital power, and the still more marvellous 
mental power. Some central vital force correlates 



888 E VERY-DAY RELIGION. 

and combines, superintends and modulates this 
complex mechanism ; otherwise, instead of going 
on for seventy years, it could not continue for sev- 
enty seconds. For the body is not of unchanging 
materials like the machines which we make of rigid 
wood and hard metal ; but it is in a constant con- 
dition of decay and repair, changing every moment 
in every molecule. Beside the material particles, 
there is another power present in every living body, 
which maintains the perfect equilibrium. For want 
of a better word, we call this the vital power. This 
works continually to evolve the type hidden in 
the germ, and to maintain it, in spite of the antago- 
nism of the chemical and physical forces which are 
always tending to disintegrate the organization. 
The spirit of the living creature is in the wheels. 
In every living body there are both mechanical 
methods and the dynamic power which continues 
them in action. 

The human mind itself has its wheels, its auto- 
matic action, its machinery. When we do not 
direct and control our thoughts, they now on of 
themselves, along certain well-worn grooves which 
we call the laws of association. A current of ideas 
is forever flowing through the mind, and what we 
do is to guide, check, restrain, direct this stream 
of thoughts. Thoughts come to us, we know not 
whence. They seem to drop into the mind from 
some higher world of light, or to rush up darkly 
from some nether abyss of evil. Imagination spreads 



MORAL MECHANICS AND DYNAMICS. 389 

a panorama of visionary "beauty before the soul. 
Memory brings up pictures of past scenes, — the 
home of our childhood, the loved faces of long ago. 
They come and go, by some inscrutable machinery 
of thought. Yet it is not all machinery, for we can 
detain them or let them go ; we can even call them 
up by force of will. What a curious fact is that 
which occurs when we are trying to recollect some 
word or name ! The name is not consciously in our 
mind, but we know it is somewhere hidden amid 
the abysses of unconscious knowledge. Like an 
angler who drops his line into a stream, and feels 
a fish bite, and then loses it again, we almost 
remember what we want, but not quite. But by 
force of fixed attention we at last succeed in seizing- 
it. If the mind did not possess this power of con- 
trolling and directing its thoughts, if thought was 
a purely mechanical process, we should be like the 
insane, who do not possess their thoughts, but are 
possessed by them. The insane man cannot govern 
or guide his thoughts'; the sane man keeps the 
reins in his hand, and directs his ideas towards the 
end which he has in view. Here, again, we have 
the wheels, and the spirit of the living creature 
within the wheels. 

The difference between a merely mechanical phi- 
losophy and a true psychology is this : Mechanical 
philosophy takes account of the laws of associa- 
tion, of unconscious cerebration, of habit, of imita- 
tion, of the strongest motive ; but remains blind to 



390 E VERY-DAY RELIGION. 

the profoundest mysteries in the mind of man, — 
the deeply rooted ideas of cause, of freedom, of 
right and wrong, of unselfish love, of infinite being. 
It only knows what comes through the senses, not 
that which is given in the reason itself. It reduces 
all motives to those of personal gratification and the 
pursuit of one's own happiness. It ignores the en- 
thusiasm of goodness, of love, of truth, which have 
inspired the prophets, reformers, and martyrs of all 
time. A true mental philosophy accepts all the 
facts of human experience. It sees the mechanism 
of mind, but it also observes the nobler powers 
which make man a living soul and a child of God. 

Mechanical and dynamic power are also combined 
in every moral act. A man's goodness is partly 
mechanical, partly conscious and free. The mechan- 
ism of goodness is the habit of doing right, the 
habit of truthfulness, of honesty, of kindness, of 
self-control, of pure thoughts, pure speech, pure 
action. "Without such habits there would be no 
fixed moral character ; Ave should have to make 
unceasing efforts not to yield to every momen- 
tary temptation. Moral progress partly consists 
in building up habits of goodness : adding to our 
faith knowledge, and to knowledge prudence, and 
to prudence zeal, and to zeal fidelity, and to fidelity 
patience, and to patience charity. It would be 
a dreadful state of things if we had to make a 
new effort each moment to do our every-day duties. 
Without this mechanical part of virtue it is evident 



MORAL MECHANICS AND DYNAMICS. 391 

there would be no such thing as fixed character. 
Edmund Burke gives to this mechanism an unfor- 
tunate name, calling these moral habits "preju- 
dices." He says, " Prejudice is of ready application 
in the emergency ; it previously engages the mind 
in a steady course of wisdom and virtue, and does 
not leave the man hesitating in the moment of 
decision, sceptical, puzzled, and unresolved. Preju- 
dice renders the man's virtue his habit, and not 
a series of unconnected acts. Through just preju- 
dice his duty becomes a part of his nature." 

This is true ; but if this were all, the heroism 
and glory of goodness would disappear. If it were 
all a mere habit, if there were no effort, no struggle, 
no battle, no enthusiastic longing for something 
better than we have yet attained, that which we 
most admire in noble characters would come to an 
end. It was no mere habit of goodness which ani- 
mated the souls of apostles, prophets, and martyrs ; 
no mechanical goodness which has sent missionaries 
to Africa and India, which makes us dissatisfied 
with all present attainment, and " harries man " 
with the love of the best. The moral machine holds 
what is already gained, and roots it in character; 
but it does not go onward to grander achievements. 
This motive power lies in moral freedom, in obeying 
the idea of right, the idea of goodness, beauty, purity, 
which goes before the soul, illuminating life with an 
ideal hope. This is the spirit of the living creature 
within the wheels. 



392 EVERY-DAY RELIGION. 

The same machinery and the same ideality are 
to be found in literature, art, science, politics, and 
religion. In literature there is a certain habit of 
expression common to each period, commonplaces 
of language and style which all writers adopt. 
Habit and imitation give a certain mannerism which 
marks an epoch. The poets at one period imitate 
Byron, at another Tennyson or Longfellow, at 
another Browning. Then comes some original 
writer who creates a new world, marks out a new 
path, and opens other fields to those who succeed 
him. Without the machine many good and useful 
writers would have no style with which to express 
themselves, for most of our vocabulary comes to 
us from the books and the speakers around us. But 
without the original ideas which are always falling 
anew out of some higher heaven of thought, litera- 
ture would consist of vain repetitions, vapid and 
tiresome commonplaces, and would die of weariness 
and exhaustion. 

We hear a good deal about the machine in poli- 
tics. Political life needs and must have some kind 
of machinery. Politics in our day are carried on 
by the antagonism of parties. Each party ought to 
represent, and in its origin does represent, some 
great idea. One party represents progress, another 
security ; one stands for freedom, the other for 
order ; one to keep safe all the good already attained, 
the other to go on to something still better. One 
party believes in reform, the other in conservatism. 



MORAL MECHANICS AND DYNAMICS. 393 

By their proper balance the welfare of the State is 
maintained, as the planets are moved in their regu- 
lar paths by the antagonistic forces of Nature. One 
party is the centrifugal force, the other the centri- 
petal. Each citizen joins the party which seems to 
him at the time to be doing the most important 
work, not because it is perfectly faultless, but be- 
cause he thinks it on the whole the best. Each 
party is a machine, and must have its mechanism, 
its party leaders, newspapers, committees, caucuses, 
otherwise it could not act with efficiency. It would 
not be an army, but a mob. 

But sometimes it happens that the machine in a 
party gets the better of the ideas. The real use of 
the machine is to cause the ideas to prevail. But, 
forgetting this, the machine thinks it is for itself, 
and that the whole purpose of the party is to keep 
the machine in power. The officials, paid to do 
work for the whole people, are appointed and kept 
in office to reward them for service done to a single 
party. Members of Congress, instead of studying 
public questions, devote their time to securing their 
own re-election. Caucuses are packed to misrep- 
resent the sentiments of voters. Party leaders re- 
gard themselves as clothed with despotic authority 
to reward and punish those who support or oppose 
them. The Federal Government interferes in State 
elections, and once, it is said, has gone so far as to 
cause letter-carriers to scatter free of charge circu- 
lars asking citizens to withdraw their patronage 



394 EVERY-DAY RELIGION. 

from a newspaper which the authorities disliked. 
When a political machine thus undertakes to govern 
the people instead of serving them, the life is evi- 
dently deserting the body. It has lost the ideas 
which gave it life. Dead mechanism has taken the 
place of living enthusiasm. Such a party may live 
some time on its past reputation, just as they say a 
railroad train on a straight and level road will run 
about five miles after the steam has been cut off. 
But the motive power is gone, and unless the 
party be reformed its end is sure. All honest men 
therefore within its ranks should make it their 
first object to reform it, even by the most heroic 
treatment. 

The machine in religion consists of creed and 
ritual, church organization and church methods. In 
religion we need both organization and inspira- 
tion. The right relation of the two was given by 
Jesus when he said, " The Sabbath was made for 
man, and not man for the Sabbath." The Jewish 
Sabbath and the Christian Lord's day both belong 
to the machinery of religion. When they are re- 
garded as a means for the elevation of man, they are 
helpful ; . when considered to be ends in themselves, 
they become a burden. The Jewish leaders in the 
time of Jesus exalted the machine of religion above 
its spirit, and so their religion became mechanical, 
formal, and dead. They had a mechanical Sabbath, 
mechanical prayers, mechanical fasting, mechanical 
alms-giving. Eeligion was a routine of outward 



MORAL MECHANICS AND DYNAMICS. 395 

works, with no soul in it. Jesus, the boldest, and at 
the same time the wisest of reformers, brought back 
men from the letter of religion to the spirit. " Do 
good to man on the Sabbath," he virtually said, 
" and you are keeping it aright. Give without 
ostentation. If you deny yourself from a sense of 
duty, make light of it, and do not parade your self- 
denial. If you pray, let your prayers be chiefly 
private, in the depths of the soul, not a ritual ser- 
vice, not verbal repetitions, but loving worship of 
the Father in spirit and truth." And under his 
heavenly influence a new tide of inspiration arose 
in human hearts. God, eternity, and immortality 
came near ; and the spirit of the living creature was 
again within the wheels. 

If we have faith, inspiration, and conviction, 
organization will follow ; but the best organiza- 
tion in the world will not produce life. The soul 
creates the body, the body does not create the soul. 
Ritual does not produce religion, but religion pro- 
duces ritual. How easily we organize when we 
have any living idea around which to organize ! 
We need not be anxious about our machine, as if 
we could not at any time make another. Let us 
only have faith in the soul, in God, in duty, in im- 
mortality, and churches will spring up almost of 
themselves. "Destroy this temple," said Jesus, 
" and I will raise it up in three days." The Temple 
and the whole majestic worship of Jerusalem went 
to the ground, but in their place arose Christian 



396 E VERY-DAY RELIGION. 

cathedrals and minsters, wonderful and original 
architecture, new songs, hymns, litanies, and litur- 
gies, the dome of St. Peter's and the spire of Stras- 

burg. 

" For, out of Thought's interior sphere, 
These wonders rose to upper air." 

There is always a tendency in religion to relapse 
into mechanism, — to multiply ceremonies and lose 
the spirit. Ever, as the winter of unbelief chills 
the soul, and the river of religious life sinks in its 
channel, the ice of forms accumulates along its 
shores. Then the Lord sends a new prophet, to 
whom religion is not a form, but a reality ; one who 
sees with his own eyes God as a heavenly presence 
in nature and life ; who has the vision and the fac- 
ulty divine. God never leaves himself without a 
witness in the world. He sends these inspired 
souls when the times require them, rising up early 
and sending them. They come in a long proces- 
sion : Paul, Augustine, Bernard, Savonarola, Huss, 
Wickliffe, Luther; and, in later clays, Pox the 
Quaker, Wesley the Methodist, Channing, Parker, 
Arthur Stanley, Frederick Eobertson. This is the 
true apostolic succession. Such men are divinely 
ordained to keep religion alive in the world when 
the prophets prophesy falsely, and the priests bear 
rule by their means, and the people love to have it 
so. These men bring us back from dusty books 
and dry forms to the open vision of a new heaven 
and a new earth. They are made priests of God, 



MORAL MECHANICS AND DYNAMICS. 397 

not by the imposition of human hands, but by the 
descent of the Holy Spirit ; not after the law of a 
carnal commandment, but by the power of an end- 
less life. They see God face to face ; see him as 
Wordsworth saw him in Nature : — 

" A presence far more deeply interfused, 
Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns 
And the round ocean and the living air. 
A motion and a spirit which impels 
All living things." 

They see him in Christ, as our own Whittier saw 
him, when he said : — 

" Our friend, our brother, and our Lord ! 
What shall thy service be 1 
Nor name, nor form, nor ritual word, 
But simply following Thee ! " 

Such a vision of God comes to the hero, reformer, 
and patriot struggling for truth and right against 
overwhelming odds ; to Wilberforce and Clarkson, 
to Garrison and Charles Sumner. They also were 
God's prophets, though they may not have known 
it ; making his righteousness and justice once more 
a reality in the world. So, too, every upright man 
and conscientious woman, to whom duty speaks 
with a divine voice, and who are faithful in the 
least, are prophets of God. Such new prophets are 
not recognized when they come ; often they are 
unpopular, derided, and hated. But they have a 
sweet content within ; they are cheerful, full of 



398 EVERY-DAY RELIGION. 

hope and joy. They have no hatred in their hearts 
for their enemies, for their enemies have done them 
no real harm. 

This is living religion, which makes all things 

DO* O 

new. It is the life of God in the soul of man. The 
wheels of our existence drag heavily till we see 
something divine in nature, in history, in every 
good cause, in every good and right action, in hon- 
est work, in patient endurance, in brave conflict 
against wrong. How happy we are when glimpses 
of this heavenly vision come to us ! Sometimes 
there dawns in the soul the sense of an infinite ten- 
derness, the consciousness that God is not far off, 
but near ; that all we think and do and say aright 
comes from his help. In the depths of our sor- 
row, in the loneliness of our bereavement, when 
disappointment and failure meet us, we wonder 
that we are somehow still upheld, and we know 
then that it is because we are indeed God's chil- 
dren. We feel in the midst of our follies, faults, 
and sins, that when we repent he will forgive us 
and help us to do better. We may, perhaps, hardly 
know whether we are Christians or not, but we have 
come to know and love God. He is our Father and 
our Friend, and that is enough. This life in the 
soul makes light. We may not have a large belief, 
but we have some solid knowledge born of our own 
experience. There is a fountain within, a well of 
water, welling up into everlasting life. And we do 
not feel constrained or hampered by this faith, but 



MORAL MECHANICS AND DYNAMICS. 399 

more free than ever, for where the spirit of the Lord 
is, there is liberty. These convictions give unity 
and purpose to life, and make it worth while to 
live. They give us sympathy with our fellow-men ; 
for we see that, though men may differ in moral 
culture, they can yet have the same profound con- 
victions. We know that we have passed from 
death to life when we love the brethren ; when we 
have renounced cynicism, unlearned contempt, and 
call no man common or unclean. We know that 
there is a divine life in the universe, that no merely 
mechanical theory can explain creation. Chemistry 
in its finest analysis does not reach this life. No 
theory of evolution can do more than state its 
method, — it does not account for the origin and 
continuance of the living world. It sees the uni- 
versal law, but not that which supports this vast 
order. Above all things, below all things, around 
all things, within all things, is the divine spirit, 
and we have found him to be our Father and our 
Friend. 

This religion is both natural and supernatural, 
for it finds God in Nature, and yet sees in him a 
power above Nature. When we enter into com- 
munion with him, our soul passes into a higher life. 
Then we attain 

" that blessed mood 
In which the burden of the mystery 
Of all this unintelligible world 
Is lightened ; that serene -and blessed mood 



400 EVERY-DAY RELIGION. 

In which the affections gently lead us on ; 
When, with an eve made quiet with the power 
Of harmony, and the deep power of joy, 
We look into the life of things." 

Then all things are ours, for all things, we know, 
are working together for good. Life is good : death 
is also good. All is discipline, education, the pas- 
sage from sense to soul. 



XXVI. 
TRANSITION PERIODS. 



26 



XXYI. 

TRANSITION PERIODS; 

WHEN PEOPLE ARE NEITHER ONE THING NOR 
THE OTHER. 



~\ JTY subject is Transition Periods. It is illus- 
-*-▼-*- trated by the little parable of Jesus about 
the children in the market-place, which we have 
given to us in Matthew xi. and Luke vii. In 
the latter place it reads thus : " Whereunto, then, 
shall I liken the children of this generation; and to 
what are they like ? They are like unto children 
sitting in the market-place, and calling one to an- 
other, and saying: We have piped unto you, and 
ye have not danced; we have mourned unto you, 
and ye have not wept. For John the Baptist 
came neither eating bread, nor drinking wine; and 
ye say, He hath a devil. The Son of Man is come 
eating and drinking ; and ye say : Behold, a glut- 
tonous man, and a wine-bibber, a friend of pub- 
licans and sinners. But wisdom is justified of all 
her children." This little picture which Jesus gives 



404 E VERY-DAY RELIGION. 

us of children's plays is an illustration of many 
things, to some of which we may give attention. 

It shows us how uniform are the tendencies of 
human nature in all ages and times. Jesus, passing 
through the market of Kazareth, or Cana, saw the 
children playing their games, just as they do now. 
The little Syrian boys and girls belonging to the great 
Semitic race, living eighteen hundred years ago, 
amid Asiatic customs and scenery, were just such 
little children as you and I saw on the Common 
yesterday. They played the same kind of games, 
imitating the customs of grown people ; and as little 
children now play soldier, play horse and driver, so 
they then played weddings and funerals. Jewish 
weddings and funerals were conducted with much 
ceremony, with processions and pomp, and so caught 
the eyes of the children who stood watching the 
nuptial cortege or solemn burial march, and, as 
soon as it went by, began to say to each other, 
" Come, let us play wedding," and then they pre- 
tended to make the music to which the others were 
to dance ; or, " Let us play funeral," and then they 
went gravely through all the customs of mourning. 
But little children were sometimes cross in those 
clays, as they are now, and so refused to play either 
one or the other game, and their companions could 
not please them, do what they would. This little trait 
of childlike nature, breaking out of the solemn dis- 
tant past, out of another civilization, race, continent, 
age, affects us like a song heard in youth, like the 



TRANSITION PERIODS. 405 

fragrance of a flower that grew in the garden where 
we roamed in infancy. I once was walking along 
the ruined passages of an old Norman castle, and 
while thinking- of the fierce race that manned those 
walls six hundred years before, I came suddenly 
upon a child's plaything lying on the gray stone. 
Goethe has a lovely poem, in which he represents 
a traveller who visits the ruins of a Greek tem- 
ple, and finds a mother and infant sitting there- 
on. Her hut was made of the carved fragments of 
the architrave or frieze, and while the stranger was 
admiring the elaborate stones, broken columns, and 
fragments of art, the mother was talking a mother's 
foolish, loving talk to her sleeping boy. So this 
little allusion to the children of the day of Jesus, 
and their plays and quarrels (coming in the midst 
of that greatest event of time), shows us how the 
life of nature renews itself evermore amid all the 
changes of human history. 

This passage also shows the habit of Christ of 
taking illustrations from common things - — from 
every-day life ! If a minister, to-day, should illus- 
trate a religious truth by a boy's game at foot-ball, 
it would be thought singular, if not undignified. 
But Christ saw nothing undignified in human na- 
ture or human life. In his teachings there is noth- 
ing conventional, nothing formal. No fact in God's 
world is to him common or unclean. 

This saying of Jesus, moreover, shows how much 
easier it is for good men, though differing in ideas, 



406 E VERY-DAY RELIGION. 

tastes, and methods, to agree in a mutual respect 
and sympathy, than for self-willed men to form any 
permanent union. How unlike in character were 
Jesus and John the Baptist ; but they had a com- 
mon aim. It was to do God's will ; to make the 
world better. So they felt a mutual respect for 
each other. John was an ascetic ; he neither ate 
nor drank, like other men; he practised abstinence; 
he lived in the wilderness ; an austere prophet, he 
denounced war against tyrants and all evil-doers. 
Jesus was not abstinent from human pleasures ; he 
came eating and drinking like other men ; not re- 
tiring into a desert, but going to weddings, to the 
suppers of rich men or poor, to the houses of his 
friends or those of strangers. He preached the 
gospel, not the law ; he preached faith, hope, love, 
courage. He set forth God as a Father, not as a 
judge. So he seemed to be very different from 
John. If he increased, John must decrease. Their 
methods of work were not alike ; their spirit was 
different ; their missions did not harmonize. But 
yet, because their deepest purpose was the same, 
John honored Jesus, and Jesus honored John. 
John had the nobleness to recognize a superior 
greatness in Jesus, though he did not comprehend 
it. There was a real union between them. John 
said of Jesus, " Behold ! the Lamb of God. I am 
not worthy to untie his shoe strings. He must in- 
crease, I must decrease." Jesus said of John, " Of 
all men born of women" — that is, prophets by 



TRANSITION PERIODS. 407 

nature, in the order of natural genius and endow- 
ment — " there is none greater than John." 

He was the last of the prophets of that great race 
who kept alive the spirit and power of Judaism 
amid the formalism of the ritualists and dog- 
matists. He was the transition from the Law to 
the Gospel; the. culminating point, and also the 
vanishing point, of the old covenant. 

An obscure text makes Jesus say that " from the 
days of John the Baptist, until now, the kingdom 
of heaven suffereth violence, and the violent take 
it by force. For all the prophets and the law 
prophesied until John." This passage probably 
means that John made the turning-point from the 
Law to the Gospel. m For Law lives by force ; the 
Gospel, by love. The Law compels ; the Gospel 
attracts. The principle of the Old Testament was 
command, — authority resting on the sanctions of 
reward and punishment. The motive of the Gospel 
is the love of God taking the initiative, — blessing 
us, that we, in return, may bless one another. 

There are three great periods in religion : — 

1. The period of Law ; in which the motive is 
hope and fear, — hope of reward and fear of punish- 
ment. 

2. The period of the Gospel ; in which the mo- 
tive is the love of what is good without regard to 
personal results. 

3. The transition period ; which is that of John 
the Baptist ; when there is the sight of the Gospel, 



408 EVERY-DAY RELIGION. 

and yet the terror of the Law behind it ; in which 
men, though they love God a little, are still afraid 
of him. 

This transition period is indicated by Jesus in 
that phrase which was probably not understood by 
the disciples, and therefore imperfectly reported : 
"The kingdom of heaven suffereth violence, and 
the violent take it by force." 

Such a transition period has frequently appeared 
in the Church. Perhaps the majority of Christians 
are now living, not under the dominion of Law, nor 
yet in the kingdom of heaven, but in the dispen- 
sation of John the Baptist. Both Orthodox Chris- 
tians and Liberal Christians find it hard to escape 
wholly from law. They believe in the Heavenly 
Father. They believe in his mercy, in his forgiving 
love. But still they think that they are not good 
enough to come to God with perfect 'freedom and 
entire trust. They think they must somehow fit 
themselves to be Christians. They are a little 
doubtful whether they are good enough to go to 
heaven, or good enough to meet their friends in 
heaven. 

Many strict believers show their allegiance to 
John the Baptist by their doctrines of the wrath of 
God, of eternal damnation, of a judgment which is 
to separate all men into two classes, saints and sin- 
ners. This makes death to them an awful thing, and 
adds a gloom to life, and an uncertainty in regard to 
their own fate and that of those dear to them. 



TRANSITION PERIODS. 409 

More liberal Christians have not these fears, but 
they have those of another kind. They think they 
have to earn their salvation by good works, and as 
our best goodness never amounts to much, they 
have no full confidence that they shall obtain it by 
any merit of theirs. They believe firmly in a law 
of moral retribution, applying to this life as to 
every other. They believe in being saved by doing 
their duty, and as their consciences are somewhat 
sensitive, they are by no means sure of their sal- 
vation. Thus, neither of these classes is living 
wholly under the Gospel or under the Law, but 
under a dispensation half-way between the two. 

But half-way convictions are not very satisfac- 
tory, and the remedy for this evil is to put both the 
Law and the Gospel in their right place. We can- 
not dispense with either, but we wish to distinguish 
between their sphere and their work. 

Jesus did not come to destroy the law, but to 
fulfil it in love. We are all under law. As a man 
sows, so shall he reap. There is a strict and infalli- 
ble retribution here and hereafter for our conduct. 
As we do right we go up ; as we do wrong we go 
down. This is true in this world and in all worlds. 

Therefore, as regards our outward position, our 
outward privileges, our outward situation in the 
universe, we have what we have earned and have 
fitted ourselves for, and we are saved by works. We 
rise or fall according to moral laws as certain in 
their operation as the law of gravitation. 



410 E VERY-DAY RELIGION. 

But as regards our inward state, our inward rela- 
tion to God and to man, we are saved by the Gospel 
and by faith in the Gospel. 

Those who live under the Gospel and believe 
in Christ cease to be anxious about their position 
in the universe. Wherever they shall be it is all 
right and good. They will be inwardly happy any- 
where, for they will be in communion with God. 
They will have their Heavenly Father and his love 
in all worlds. They can say, with David, "If I 
ascend into heaven, thou art there ; if I make my 
bed in hell, thou art there also." If they are to 
have nothing outwardly, they will possess all things 
inwardly. If they have to suffer hereafter, they 
know that it will not be from the answer of God, but 
from his love ; because they need to suffer, and that 
this is best for them. But of one thing they are 
sure, that nothing shall separate them from the love 
of God, — neither affliction, nor distress, nor angels, 
nor devils, nor heaven, nor hell, nor things present, 
nor things to come. 

This puts an end to the time of John the Bap- 
tist, and to the Transition Period. It puts the Law 
in its right place and the Gospel in its right place. 
The Law applies to external conditions of outward 
attainment, position, character, and desert. The 
Gospel applies to the inward life of the heart and 
soul, to its deepiest convictions, trusts, and joys. 
Our life is hid with Christ in God, and so all is 
well with us while we trust in him. Our outward 



TRANSITION PERIODS. 411 

destiny depends on ourselves, and results from our 
fidelity to duty, to truth, and to law. 

The Gospel produces inward unity of faith and 
purpose. It gives us unity with ourselves, and 
till we have that unity we can be satisfied nei- 
ther with ourselves nor with others. How diffi- 
cult to please those who are not at one with 
themselves ! 

If a man is not at peace with himself by being at 
peace with God, nothing suits him. He is like the 
children in the parable. Their companions said to 
them, " Come, let us play a wedding ! " No, they 
did not wish to play that. "Then let us play a 
funeral ! " No, they did not wish to play that, 
either. Until we have some inward union, there 
can be no real union with others. 

So, when John came, — an austere, stern man, — 
teaching retribution, rousing the whole moral na- 
ture, stirring the conscience to its depths, people 
said : " He is a fanatic ! He is mad ! He is crazy ! 
He has a devil ! How sino-ular, to live in a desert ! 
How improper, to preach out of doors ! He is 
responsible for the lives of the people whom he 
has carried out there. Eeligion is a rational thing. 
I don't believe in such enthusiasm. We ought to 
be moderate in all things. Eeligion is not sent in 
order to frighten people : it is to make them happy. 
I believe that religion never was designed to make 
our pleasure less. This John the Baptist is a mere 
demagogue." 



412 EVERY-DAY RELIGION. 

Then Jesus comes. He is not a fanatic. He 
allows his disciples to walk on the Sabbath, and to 
pluck corn when they are hungry. He heals a sick 
man on the Sabbath day. He enjoins no strict 
ceremonies, no hours of prayer, no fasts, no wash- 
ings. He goes to a wedding and makes wine ; he 
visits all sorts of people, rich and poor; he lays 
stress on the spirit, the motive, very little on forms 
of any kind. He will certainly satisfy those who 
objected to John ; so you think. Not at all. They 
say of him : " He is self-indulgent, a wine-bibber, 
not dignified enough ; he is too lax altogether. Did 
you hear of his telling them to forgive a woman 
caught in an act of sin ? He talks with improper 
people ! What is the world coming to ? All the 
landmarks are breaking down between the respect- 
able classes and the lower classes. Do you call 
such a man as that a religious teacher ? I call him 
a mere man of the world. He preached the other 
day against the Pharisees, who are the most respect- 
able people we have among us. He must be a bad 
man, and he ought to be punished." 

The difficulty was this : they did not like the 
austerity of John, because they were not ready to 
repent of their sins and begin a life of holiness. 
They did not .like the gospel gentleness of Jesus, 
because they feared that if the terrors of the law 
were taken away, there would be nothing left. They 
believed in the law, but did not like it. They liked 
the gospel, but did not believe in it. 



TRANSITION PERIODS. 413 

There are just such people nowadays. They do 
not like Orthodoxy because it is too severe in its 
demands ; but still they believe in it. They like 
liberal Christianity, but they do not believe in it. 
They believe in terror and punishment as the only 
motives which can influence men ; but they do not 
like them. They like the Sermon on the Mount, 
and the Good Samaritan, and the Prodigal Son, 
but do not believe in them. They think some- 
thing stronger necessary. 

The difficulty is in themselves. There is no 
unity within, so nothing suits them. If they would 
earnestly follow what they believe, db^j the law, 
be good Orthodox men, or good Liberals, — by either 
path they would reach the full light of the Gospel 
and be something better by and by. 

When a man's conscience is pulling him one way 
and his heart is pulling him another way, nothing 
pleases him. If you ask him to do his duty, and 
tell him what he ought to be, his conscience assents, 
but he does not like it. If, on the other hand, you 
make excuses for him, and tell him he is all right, 
then his feelings are soothed, but his conscience 
remonstrates, because he knows what you say is un- 
true. Wilfulness is thus always ill at ease, and has 
no inward unity so long as any conscience is left. 
Men at discord in themselves can have no lasting 
unity with each other. They may be united for 
a time by common interests, but there is continual 
danger of a rupture. 



414 EVERY-DAY RELIGION. 

The union of good men is internal, though, there 
may be outward differences. The union of wilful 
men may be external, but there are always inward 
differences. The children of folly may unite for a 
common purpose, may be allied together as Herod 
and Pilate were allied against Christ. Pirates may 
join for plunder; the children of this world, for 
power, pleasure, and earthly gain. But there is no 
inward union, and as soon as the outward advan- 
tage of alliance ceases, the partnership is dissolved. 
But good men, though separated outwardly, are in- 
wardly at one. They belong to one invisible and 
indivisible church. By and by they will come 
together outwardly, and see eye to eye. The in- 
evitable logic of faith and reason will at last unite 
them, and then wisdom shall be justified of all her 
children. John the Baptist will understand Christ ; 
Barnabas will comprehend Paul; Penelon and 
Martin Luther, Athanasius and Arius, Dr. Channing 
and Dr. Beecher, will recognize each other's worth, 
and bless God together for what each has accom- 
plished for the kingdom of heaven. 

So shall wisdom be at last justified of all her 
children. So shall all good men, sincerely desiring 
to do right, be found at last to be walking; too-ether 
on the same road toward the best things. He who 
is faithful in the least will discover that he belongs 
to that family of which Christ is the head, and he 
will have for his brothers and sisters the great and 
the good of all climes and of every age. He will 



TRANSITION PERIODS. 415 

be a member of the society of great intellects, the 
cherubim with many eyes, and great lovers, the 
seraphim hiding themselves with their wings from 
the intense glory of God's throne. Wisdom is not 
sectarian nor bigoted ; she has a large church, and 
many children, and is justified of them all. 



XXVII. 
LOST OPPORTUNITIES. 



27 



XXVII. 
LOST OPPORTUNITIES. 



" His countenance fell at the saying, and he went away 
sorrowful, for he was one that had great possessions ." 

TP\ANTE, in his vision of hell, sees there one 
-*-^ whom he does not name, but who, he says, 
"made the great refusal." It has been supposed 
that Dante refers to the young man who had this 
invitation from Jesus and sorrowfully declined it. 

It was the great refusal ; it was a lost opportu- 
nity, and such an opportunity as few men have had 
in this world. There must have been some great 
capacity for good in this youth. It appeared in 
the ardor with which he came running to Jesus; 
in the reverence he showed for the goodness of the 
Teacher. He was a ruler, a man of position ; but he 
did not hesitate to come to this village Rabbi to seek 
the way to the spiritual life. He could also honestly 
say he had kept the commandments from his youth. 
But he had no pride on that account; he longed 
for something more than this negative goodness. 
All these were marks of a disposition which united 



420 E VERY-DAY RELIGION. 

aspiration, modesty, reverence for goodness, and 
fidelity in conduct. And we are told that Jesus, 
who had the power of reading character, loved him, 
and gave him the opportunity of going up higher. 
He told him to sell what he had and give to the 
poor, and follow him, and he should have treasure 
in heaven. It was not because it was a rule, in 
joining the society of Jesus, to renounce one's pos- 
sessions, as it is in the monastic orders ; for we find 
that many of the disciples of Jesus continued to 
keep their property. But no doubt it was because 
Jesus saw, in this particular instance, that such a 
renunciation was necessary; that in this case the 
young man's mind must not be distracted by the 
care of his property; he must be able to devote 
himself wholly to his new work. The love which 
Jesus felt for this youth, and which beamed from 
his eyes so that the disciples noticed it and recorded 
it, suggests to us that if he had accepted the offer 
and obeyed Jesus, he might have become another 
apostle like John ; he might have left us a fifth 
gospel, with some precious additional insights into 
the Master's mind; have recorded for us some of 
the many sayings now forever gone. Thus when 
he turned away it vjas " the great refusal," — one of 
those lost opportunities which never return, and are 
lamented always. 

Dante has put the young man into his " Inferno ; " 
but God is more merciful than Dante; so let us 
hope that this good youth, who made one great 



LOST OPPORTUNITIES. 421 

mistake, has long since been welcomed by Jesus in 
the other world, and allowed to atone for this unfor- 
tunate decision, or indecision. For I suppose he 
did not so much decide against following Jesus ; he 
was only unable to make up his mind to follow him. 
Certainly his punishment was sufficient without his 
being sent to hell. Never can he wholly forget, 
even in heaven, that lost opportunity ; never cease 
to sorrow for that irrevocable hour. 

Other examples of a similar kind are to be found 
in the ISTew Testament. There is the instance of 
Nicodemus, who could come by night to Jesus, but 
could not make up his mind to avow his disciple- 
ship by day. There was the case of Felix, who said 
to Paul that when he had a convenient season he 
would call for him. Two years passed, and the 
convenient season did not come ; and then Felix 
lost his place and returned to Eome. Think of it ! 
What would we not give to have an opportunity to 
talk with Paul at any time during two whole years ! 
That was another lost opportunity. 

In fact, every new step forward in life offers 
an opportunity which may be accepted or refused. 
Lowell truly says : — 

"Some great cause, God's new Messiah, offering each the 

bloom or blight, 
Parts the goats upon the left hand, parts the sheep upon 

the right ; 
And the choice goes by forever 'twixt that darkness and 

the light." 



422 E VERY-DAY RELIGION. 

Every cause, every work, every day that comes, 
offers opportunities, but always on conditions. We 
must give up something to obtain something else. 
We must be prepared to make renunciations if we 
would gain advantages. We may either leave all to 
follow the new Messiah, or we may say, "Go thy way ; 
at a more convenient season I will attend to thee." 

These opportunities come, not only to individ- 
uals, but to nations, to churches, to communities. 

I recollect hearing Dr. Solger, a man of much 
insight, say, in a historical lecture, that the Lutheran 
Reformation, if it had been accepted by the Catholic 
Church, would have saved Europe five hundred 
years of relapse and loss. Many of the best Cath- 
olics wished to come to some terms with the Refor- 
mation ; to reform the abuses of the Church and 
remain united with the reformers. But the oppor- 
tunity passed by, and the results of that lost 
opportunity were the desolating religious wars in 
Germany and France, the Inquisition in Spain, 
Bartholomew massacres, the cruelties of the Duke 
of Alva in the Netherlands, extremes of thought 
on either side, Protestants missing the good there 
is in the Roman Church, Roman Catholics losing 
the good in the Protestant Church. That one oppor- 
tunity accepted would, as Dr. Solger said, have put 
Europe five hundred years further forward than it 
is to- day. 

So in this country, in 1820, at the time of the 
Missouri Compromise, this nation had the power to 



LOST OPPORTUNITIES. 423 

resist the extension of slavery, and say, "Hitherto 
thou shalt come, and no further, and here shall thy 
proud waves be stayed." Had it done so, we might 
have been spared the long and bitter antislavery 
struggle, the woes and wrongs and losses of the 
Civil War, and a thousand other miseries and sins. 
It was a lost opportunity. 

So, too, when the German armies had defeated 
the French Emperor at Sedan, it would have been 
a great gain for humanity had the king of Prussia 
made peace and withdrawn his armies, and said, 
" The dynasty has fallen with which I made war. 
My quarrel was with the Emperor; I have no 
quarrel with France." If he had done that, there 
would be no necessity to-day for France and Ger- 
many to spend their life-blood in maintaining great 
standing armies. The French are a people of senti- 
ment, capable of recognizing generous treatment, 
and France and Germany would now be friends, 
instead of watching each other with mutual suspi- 
cion and hatred. That was another lost national 
opportunity. 

Providence sometimes allows a vast deal to de- 
pend on the course taken by a single man. How 
much the first Napoleon might have done, after he 
had defended France against Europe and made her 
safe and strong, if he had then ceased from war and 
devoted his grand intelligence and power to ad- 
vancing peaceful industry and national progress ! 
That was a lost opportunity. 



424 E VERY-DAY RELIGION. 

When our friends leave us for another world, how 
often we say, " Why did I not do differently during 
all those years when I had them ? Why was I not 
more considerate of their feelings, more attentive 
to their needs, more thoughtful of ways in which 
I could have made them happy ? Why was I so 
cold and selfish, so hard and overbearing, so irrita- 
ble, so determined to have my own way? Why 
was I not kinder ? Why did I not appreciate more 
their goodness ? Alas ! I see it all now when it 
is too late ! How often I wounded the feelings of 
that dear friend, who was to me so true and faithful, 
so loving and tender, so conscientious and pure ! 
Too late ! too late ! If it were all to do again, how 
different my conduct would be ! " 

When we ourselves pass away, leaving our work 
undone, or badly done, will there be needed any 
greater punishment than to see what good we might 
have done and did not, or what lasting evil we 
have caused which we might have avoided ? 

Mrs. Oliphant, in one of her stories, has described 
how an old lady, whose only fault was a modest 
self-indulgence, saw after she had entered the other 
world what a wrong she had done in not remem- 
bering in her will one for whom she ought to 
have provided. The writer tells how the old lady 
tried to come back and rectify her error, but only 
succeeded in frightening persons by her helpless 
apparition. The story illustrates what a terrible 
punishment we may find it, to be enlightened 



LOST OPPORTUNITIES. 425 

hereafter in regard to our sins of omission and 
commission. 

I am afraid that if persons are to suffer hereafter 
for not making a just and good disposition of their 
property by will, there will be a great deal of misery 
in the other world. Too often a man's testament 
is just witat the name implies, — it is his will; not 
his conscience, not his reason, not his heart, only 
his will. He says, " Shall I not do what I will 
with my own ? " He forgets that he must answer 
for the use of this power, as of all others. He seeks 
to find some way by which he can still hold his 
property after death. This feeling produced primo- 
geniture and entails in England, and those abuses 
which the law calls by the expressive word mortmain, 
— " the dead hand." The statutes of mortmain were 
intended to prevent the very abuse which Jesus 
denounced as practised by the Pharisees, who allowed 
persons to alienate their property from their relations 
by dedicating it to the Temple, and calling it " cor- 
ban," — that is, a gift to God. Dying persons were 
persuaded by priests that their sins would be for- 
given if they gave their property to the Church and 
disinherited their heirs. There was at one time 
danger that a large part of the land in England 
would go into the possession of the Church, and the 
English law of mortmain declares that land must 
not be given for such purposes by a deed or will 
executed by a dying man. He must give his land 
for charitable objects in his lifetime, or not at all. 



426 EVERY-DAY RELIGION. 

But every clay brings to each of us opportunities 
which we may neglect or never notice. We have 
an opportunity of speaking in behalf of truth and 
justice, and we are silent. We decline to take our 
stand against public prejudice or popular opinion. 
We are afraid of being opposed or ridiculed, or of 
beinsj out of the fashion, and so we do nothing 
when we ought to act, and the opportunity goes 
by. We are like the man who hid his pound in a 
napkin and buried it in the earth, and said, " Lord, 
I was afraid ! " 

Let us do what we can, and we shall not be 
followed into the other world by our lost oppor- 
tunities bearing witness against us in the great 
day of account and retribution. Every day brings 
some opportunity. Every outward call may be an 
opportunity. Every movement of conscience is an 
opportunity. And remember that we are never 
called to do more than is in our own power. If we 
can say, " I have done what I could," that is enough. 

But how shall we remember to clo what we 
can ? Who ever does all he can ? We are not 
always in the right mood, not always in the best 
temper ; the power may be there, but the spirit be 
wanting. How, then, shall we learn to use oppor- 
tunities, and not neglect them, not pass them by? 

Here, as ever, comes in the need and the help 
of Christian faith. Faith not only leads to work, 
but the effort to work leads to faith. The deep- 
est religious experience is born of the strongest 



LOST OPPORTUNITIES. 427 

moral purpose. Whenever men seriously try to 
do right, they feel the need of help from on high. 
If a man should say to me, " I do not believe in 
religion, I believe in morality; if I do right, that 
I think is enough," I should answer : " I think so 
too. Now, go to work in good earnest to do right, 
and to be good. Begin every day with a determi- 
nation not to omit any opportunity. Watch and 
see if you fail. Do not drift, but steer. Be thor- 
oughly moral, and I think you will find religion a 
necessary help to enable you to meet your own 
standard. You will find that the sense of God's 
presence, his influence, his readiness to give you 
good thoughts and good inspirations will lead 
directly to the best morality." 

One purpose of Jesus was to show us that we 
can have this help, have it now, have it always. 
His gospel is the revelation to the soul of an ever- 
present love, waiting to be gracious. "Ask, and 
ye shall receive ; seek, and ye shall find ; knock, 
and it shall be opened unto you. For every one that 
asketh, receiveth ; and he that seeketh, findeth ; 
and to him that knocks, it shall be opened." Every 
one ! — then it is a law that prayer is answered. 
It is not a divine caprice, but a divine method, 
sure and certain as any law of Nature. The law 
of gravitation is not more unerring and constant 
than the law which ordains that wdienever one cries 
to the Father, asking spiritual help, the spiritual 
help is given. 



428 E VERY-DAY RELIGION. 

But you may say, " Prayer is not always an- 
swered. What became of the tens of thousands 
of prayers offered for the life of Garfield ? What 
became of the prayer of Christ himself, in his 
agony, praying that the cup might pass from him 
if it were possible, and if God so willed ? How 
can we say that all prayer is answered ? " 

I reply that when we pray for bodily life or any 
outward good, as for example for the recovery of a 
sick child, there is the same condition to the prayer 
that Jesus put into his own : " Nevertheless, not 
my will, but thine be done." Prayer, even then, 
may avail, and greatly avail, but not always in the 
way we expect. The best answer we may receive 
to a prayer for any outward blessing may be an 
apparent refusal. 

When Augustine, a youth, was proposing to go 
to Eome, his mother, the pious Monica, prayed 
that he might be kept from going there, because 
she dreaded the temptations of the capital for her 
son. But he went, and was converted to Chris- 
tianity by Ambrose. So, in his Confessions, he says, 
" Thou, Lord, didst refuse to my mother the out- 
ward form and body of her prayer, but didst grant 
to her the inward heart of her prayer. For that 
which she really asked was that my spiritual life 
might be made safe ; and it was saved by my going 
to Eome." 

But when Jesus says, without limitation or con- 
dition, "Ask, and ye shall receive," he is speaking 



LOST OPPORTUNITIES. 429 

of prayer for spiritual help. For he uses the illus- 
tration of a father, who will not refuse bread to a 
starving child, and says, "How much more will 
your Heaventy Father give his Holy Spirit to those 
who ask him 1 " 

If, then, we have these opportunities to meet 
every day; if we are so apt to pass them by; if 
it is so hard to be in the right spirit; if, without 
such a right spirit, we are sure to do what we ought 
not, and to omit to do what we ought, — then we are 
like the hungry child, who needs food and cannot 
get it for himself. Will not God certainly feed our 
soul with inward strength if we have enough faith 
to go to him ? I believe that this is a universal 
law. I do think that any one, wishing to do right 
and finding it hard to do so, — one who tries and tries 
again, resolves and resolves again, — will certainly 
find himself lifted to a higher plane by simply look- 
ing up and saying, " Oh, my Father ! feed my soul 
with thy light and thy love." He will find that 
somehow or other he is able to say the right thing 
at the right time ; to do the right thing ; to be in 
the right tone and temper. Whereas before he 
was apt to be irritable, now he is patient; before 
he was thoughtless, now he is considerate ; before 
he was forgetful of others, now he remembers them. 
There has come into the depths of his soul, with- 
out his knowing how, a power which directs his 
thoughts and words and actions aright. And this 
is what is meant by the influence of the Spirit. 



480 EVERY-DAY RELIGION. 

It is felt in its results and fruits — love, joy, peace, 
long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, 
and temperance. 

If, then, we do not wish to have a life filled with 
lost opportunities, we must be every day prepared 
to meet them. And as we cannot prepare our- 
selves sufficiently by any amount of discipline or 
any strength of determination, we have a right to 
believe that by looking up and opening our soul 
to God he will give us the power of meeting each 
opportunity aright. 

Without this faith, how apt we are to postpone 
and put off any difficult work ; to say, " I will do 
it at a more convenient season, when I feel more 
like doing it, when I can think what I had better 
say and do." But with this confidence in an ever- 
present help, we can meet every occasion, and we 
shall be able to understand the meaning of the 
Christian paradox, " When I am weak, then am I 
strong;" or that other saying of the Apostle, " The 
life I live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son 
of God." 

For here in truth, to my mind, lies the empha- 
sis and essence of Christ's teaching. He leads 
us, through the law to the gospel; through duty 
to trust ; through work to prayer ; through the 
sense of responsibility to the sense of dependence. 
Christian faith is neither doctrine nor ritual ; not 
a system of ethics nor an emotion of piety ; not pro- 
fession or form. It is the law of God, fulfilled by 



LOST OPPORTUNITIES. 431 

faith in the love of God. It is inflowing strength 
with which to do our daily work. It is the happy 
consciousness that God is around us with his per- 
petual care ; beneath us with his supreme power ; 
above us with his providential blessing ; within us 
by his constant inspiration. 

This faith is saving faith ; it saves us from doubt 
and despair. It fills the heart with hope. It 
causes each day to dawn serene and peaceful, each 
night to close quiet and full of content. Trials 
may come, will come ; lonely hours ; the loss of 
those we love ; disappointed hopes. But with 
these trials strength also will come with which to 
bear them. More than this, — we may go wrong ; 
we may neglect and forget opportunities ; we may 
forget to pray ; and then we shall find ourselves 
relapsing into the old and dreary routine of weak- 
ness and sin. But with this difference, — that we 
know how to overcome the difficulty; we know 
the way back. We know that we have only to 
turn round and begin again, with a greater humility 
and distrust of ourselves ; with a greater trust in 
God, and that the sense of his forgiving love will 
descend once more into our hearts. For forgiveness, 
too, comes, not by caprice, but by law. " If we 
confess our sins, God is faithful and just to forgive 
us our sins." Observe, it is not said, " he is merci- 
ful," but "he is faithful and just." It is, then, a 
law that when we are willing to look our sins in 
the face, and see ourselves as we are, with that 



432 E VERY-DAY RELIGION. 

sight and confession of evil we are again helped out 
of the evil into good. 

This is the sum and substance of personal re- 
ligion. This is the " life hid with Christ in God." 
It is the steady purpose of doing what we can in 
the direction of duty, and the steady trust in God 
for power with which to do it. Either of the two, 
alone, is not enough. But joined together they 
are sufficient to lift us above the danger of lost 
opportunities. 



XXVIII. 
THE ETHICS OF THE BALLOT-BOX. 



28 



XXVIII. . 

THE ETHICS OF THE BALLOT-BOX. 



"And they prayed, and said, Thou, Lord, which Tcnow- 
5 the hearts of all men, show whether of these two thou 
chosen. And they gave forth their lots, and the lot 
fell on Matthias" 

THIS proceeding, recorded in the Book of Acts, 
was .probably the first example of voting we 
have in Christendom. Some persons think that 
this was not voting, but drawing a name from an 
urn. But in that case it would not have been said 
that " they gave forth their lots" for only one per- 
son could have drawn a single name from an urn. 
It is, therefore, the opinion of Mosheim and others 
that voting is here meant. 

If so, voting was considered, in this first instance, 
as a matter of conscience and religion. They wished 
to choose a man whose heart God would approve ; 
they wished to elect a good man, and they prayed 
to God to enable them to do so. 

It is a duty to put religion into politics, and 
conscience into the ballot. The church and pulpit 
should abstain from party politics ; but all the more 



436 EVERY-DAY RELIGION. 

should it lay down the principles by which voting 
ought to be directed. " What rules should an 
honest man adopt in voting ? " is a question very 
proper for the pulpit. And as we are now on the 
eve of an election, I propose to consider this ques- 
tion. I have little to say of particular parties or 
of particular persons. But of parties in general I 
must say a word. 

In most free countries there are two great parties 
constantly contending for power, and most persons, 
in order to make their vote effectual, must select 
one or the other. When it is quite certain that 
one or the other of two parties must win, and the 
election is by a plurality, it is evident that I might 
almost as well stay at home as vote for a third 
party or third candidate. If, indeed, I think that 
the most important issue is represented by this 
third party or its candidate, then it may be my duty 
to vote for it, year after year, without any expecta- 
tion of immediate victory, but in the hope of seeing 
the small party gradually becoming larger, and at 
last successful. Thus, for example, I voted, from 
1840 to 1860, first for the Liberty party, then for 
the Free Soil party, and then for the Eepublican 
party, — voting in the minority for twenty years, in 

that 

" friendless contest, lingering long, 
Through weary day and weary year," 

till victory, born of endurance, came to us in 1860 
in the election of Abraham Lincoln. 



THE ETHICS OF THE BALLOT-BOX. 437 

But usually we must vote for one of two tickets, 
for one of the two is sure to be elected. What con- 
siderations ought to influence us in selecting our 
party or our candidate ? 

The first rule is always to vote when we have a 
right to do so. If republican institutions fail, it 
will be because the good men and wise men and 
educated men fail to do their duty by taking part 
in politics. Bad men, who make a trade of politics, 
are sure to vote, and to induce others to do so. If 
educated men stay at home, and the ignorant are 
led to the polls by crafty demagogues, who is re- 
sponsible for bad government ? 

I should like to see it made disgraceful not to 
vote. I should like to have public opinion con- 
demn those who, instead of voting, keep at their 
business or their pleasure, or who sit at home 
reading and do nothing for public order, freedom, 
and good government. All drinking saloons and 
places of amusement should be closed. I would 
have election day made as sacred as Sunday. And 
every man should not only vote himself, but should 
also see that his employees have proper opportunity 
given them to deposit their vote. 

I often go to the polls attended by some man 
who works for me. He usually votes one way, and 
I the other. " Why not both pair off, and stay at 
home ? " you say. Because then loth of us would 
neglect our duty. I should be as sorry not to have 
him go, as not to go myself. I should be sorry to 



438 EVERY-DAY RELIGION. 

have him vote my ticket in order to please me. 
I prefer that he should select his own candidate, 
and vote independently ; and I respect him for 
doing so. 

There are a number of persons — men of culture 
and leisure — who refuse to vote because their 
votes will be neutralized by those of foreigners or 
uneducated persons. They would like to have all 
such persons disfranchised ; then, perhaps, they 
would condescend to vote themselves. But if any 
are to be disfranchised, I would not have those dis- 
franchised who perform their duty by voting, but 
those who neglect it. I respect the foreigner who, 
not having had the advantage of education, prizes 
his new privilege as a freeman, and is willing to 
pay his poll-tax, and take time, in order to vote. I 
respect him more than I respect the man who, 
having education, leisure, opportunity, thinks him- 
self too good to do his duty to his country and its 
institutions. 

I once heard this anecdote of Judge Parsons, 
the great Massachusetts jurist and lawyer. It is 
said that, being about to try a mercantile case, he 
ordered a special jury to be summoned ; and among 
the names was that of Colonel Thomas H. Perkins, 
the leading merchant of Boston in that day, and a 
personal friend of Judge Parsons. When the officer 
made his return, he laid down a fifty-dollar bill 
before the judge. " What is that ? " said Parsons. 
" Colonel Perkins says he is very busy to-day, and 



THE ETHICS OF THE BALLOT-BOX. 439 

prefers to pay his fine." " Take that bill back to 
Colonel Perkins/' said the judge, " and tell him to 
come here at once ; and if he refuses, bring him by 
force." When Colonel Perkins appeared, the judge 
looked sternly at him and said, "What did you 
mean, sir, by sending money when you were sum- 
moned to sit on this jury ? " Colonel Perkins re- 
plied, " I meant no disrespect to the court, your 
honor ; but I was extremely busy, fitting out a ship 
for the East Indies, and I thought if I paid my 
fine I might be excused." " Fitting out a ship for 
the East Indies, sir ! " exclaimed the judge ; " and 
how happens it that you are able to fit out a ship 
for the East Indies ? " " Your honor, I do not 
understand you." " I repeat, then, my question : 
How is it that you are able to fit out a ship for 
the East Indies ? If you do not know, I will tell 
you. It is because the laws of your country are 
properly administered. If they were not, you 
would have no ships. Take your seat, sir, with 
the jury." 

There is an important lesson in that story. Here 
are men inheriting, acquiring, retaining, enjoying, 
large properties under the law. They are asked in 
return to pay their taxes, and, by voting, to take 
their share of the work of putting honest and sen- 
sible men into office. But that is beneath their 
dignity. They do not wish to mingle with such a 
democratic crowd. Such men spend their time in 
undervaluing free institutions, declaiming against 



440 E VERY-DAY RELIGION. 

universal suffrage, and praising the despotic gov- 
ernments of Europe, Until the French Empire 
fell through its own baseness, they were its ad- 
mirers, and wished that Heaven had given us such 
a ruler as Xapoleon III. Some of them are only 
contented when they are on the boulevards of Paris 
or in the gamine-rooms of Homburg ; and it is 
no great misfortune to our country to have them 
there. 

When a man belongs to a party with whose 
general aims he is in sympathy, let him vote for 
this party, but with two provisos, — that it shall 
advocate good measures and nominate good men. 
For the sake of the party itself, to keep it pure, its 
members should refuse to vote for it when it pro- 
poses bad measures or offers bad men as its candi- 
dates. That is the warning, and the only warning, 
which party leaders understand. 

But when good men are -on one side and impor- 
tant measures on the other, what are we to do ? 
Perhaps I vote with a party in whose principles I 
believe. But it does not nominate as good men as 
the other party. Shall I say, " Measures, not men," 
and vote for my party ticket ; or shall I say, " Men, 
not measures," and vote for the upright candidate ? 
This question requires some consideration, for it is 
one which we are often called on to answer. 

First, I should say this at least, very decidedly : 
ISTever be persuaded to vote for a bad man, though 
he may be ever so able, ever so popular, and may 



THE ETHICS OF THE BALLOT-BOX. 441 

have the regular party nomination. Do not vote 
for a man who is intemperate, licentious, dishonest, 
false ; or a man who has been found guilty of a 
rascality. Such a one is sure, sooner or later, to 
betray those who trust him. Let it be understood, 
once for all, that the party contains a large body of 
conscientious men who cannot be allured or driven 
to the support of any selfish politician, merely 
because by adroit bargains and promises he has 
succeeded in getting a nomination. Bolt such 
nominations openly, and they will not be repeated. 
Conscientious men are not only the salt of the earth 
and the salt of the Church, but also the salt of their 
party, to keep it from destruction. 

Do not vote for a man, either, because he is smart. 
Smartness in a public man may do harm as well as 
good. Smartness is the American idol, the god we 
worship, as the English worship power, and the 
French reputation. Endow a man with great 
strength, with power to compass his ends, power 
of position, power of wealth, power of rank and of 
office, and the average Englishman falls on his 
knees before him. Let a man be famous, capable 
of making a grand display, and the average French- 
man will worship him. Let a man be quick, adroit, 
full of wit and ingenuity, able to do and say bright 
tilings, and the average American looks up to him 
with devotion and reverence. But not always. I 
once knew an instance to the contrary in American 
politics. 



442 E VERY-DAY RELIGION. 

In Jefferson County, Ky., the Whig majority 
some forty years ago was overwhelmingly large, 
so that two Whig candidates were running against 
each other. One was Thomas F. Marshall, then 
in his prime, one of the most brilliant speakers, 
full of wit, and master of all the arts of oratory. 
His opponent, Mr. Graves, was a plain Kentucky 
farmer. The rival candidates were expected to 
address the people every day and evening before 
election at each of the voting precincts. Every 
night the people collected in crowds to hear Tom 
Marshall speak, and kept him talking to them all 
the evening. Graves they would hardly listen to 
at all. Marshall was quite sure of success, but 
when the day of election came Graves was elected 
by a large majority. The people had confidence in 
him ; they knew he was an honest, upright man, a 
man of simple common sense. Marshall they knew 
to be a man whose moral habits made him un- 
reliable. They liked to hear him speak, and were 
willing to have him entertain them. But they 
could not trust him. What happened then may 
happen again. I suppose the people of Massachu- 
setts are as sagacious in such matters as the people 
of Kentucky. 

A candidate who beforehand makes great promises 
of what he will do if he is elected is not a safe man 
to vote for. Great promises are apt to be followed 
by small performance. Nor is it well to vote for a 
man whose character you do not approve and with 



THE ETHICS OF THE BALLOT-BOX. 443 

whose political theories you do not agree, merely 
for the sake of a change. A change may be for 
the worse instead of for the better. If you are 
tired of riding too long a time in a carriage, you do 
not wish the driver to overturn it for the sake of a 
change. You leave the carriage. 

There are times when measures are the most 
important question ; when parties are divided in 
regard to some great issues, as they were during 
the antislavery struggle ; then vote for " measures, 
not men." Vote for the party which advocates the 
wisest and best measures. At other times there 
are no such important issues, no great ideas at 
stake ; but on one side there are good, true, faithful 
men ; on the other untrustworthy, selfish politicians. 
The rule then is to be reversed, and we must say 
" Men, not measures." 

As regards measures, the principal political re- 
forms now required, in order to bring prosperity 
to the nation, are : (1) More economy in public 
matters; (2) A fixed and stable currency; (3) Ee- 
form in the appointment of officials ; (4) Such 
measures as will tend to prevent pauperism, vice, 
and crime in the community. 

The people have been growing extravagant for 
many years, as individuals, as towns, as States. 
Economy in public matters is very necessary, in 
order to lighten taxation and restore prosperous 
times. There has been waste in State affairs, and 
we need economy there. 



444 E VERY-DAY RELIGION. 

And to "bring about economy in the State we 
need legislatures and governors who do not be- 
lieve in jobs, in rewarding friends and punishing 
enemies, in making the public purse the means of 
private gain. We want an honest governor and 
an honest legislature, rather than smart and tricky 
men. 

The public and private waste has come from 
the appearance of wealth caused by an inflated 
and irredeemable currency. The one great source 
of waste has been the derangement of prices 
caused by the suspension of payment, and the sub- 
stitution of vast quantities of promises to pay in 
the place of money. When the Government re- 
sumes specie payment, that is, when it is ready to 
pay its debts, good times will slowly but steadily 
return. Eesumption will restore confidence, and 
confidence, though a plant of slow growth, will 
eventually become a great tree of national pros- 
perity. We ought, therefore, to vote against every 
party, every man, and every measure whose success 
would plunge us again into the vast gulf from which 
we have been painfully emerging, — a gulf of misery, 
danger, dishonor. 

One great danger at the present time is from that 
sentiment which is rapidly extending itself and 
growing into a powerful influence in politics, the 
fundamental idea of which is that it is the duty of 
the Government to make the people rich and happy. 
Men believe that if the Government would only 



THE ETHICS OF THE BALLOT-BOX. 445 

make a great deal of paper money and build public 
works, so as to distribute it in vast quantities, the 
old prosperity would return. They do not want 
redemption, — that is, that Government should pay 
its debt; they do not believe in paying interest; 
they do not want the national debt paid in gold, 
and their fundamental idea is that, somehow, Gov- 
ernment can make every man rich and happy if it 
will only do its duty. Government should own 
the railroads and run them ; Government do the 
banking, carry on the factories, and furnish labor 
at high prices to all the people. 

In many places it is the Democratic party which 
holds these notions, so wholly opposed to its own 
traditions. The old Democratic party, from the 
time of Jefferson to Jackson, believed in hard 
money; was opposed to the Government having 
anything to do with internal improvement, and 
wished the work of the Government to be limited 
to the simple protection of property and person. 
General Jackson desired that the State and local 
banks should issue the paper currency, and that 
the Government should issue no money but gold. 
Even so small a work as a stone road, built by the 
United States from Cumberland in Maryland to 
Columbus in Ohio, was opposed by the whole De- 
mocracy as being beyond the constitutional power of 
the Government. That was nearer the truth than 
the present madness, which wishes the Government 
to do everything. 



446 E VERY-DAY RELIGION. 

Good men of all parties should unite against such 
delusions. It is needed, in the interest of morality, 
that Government should be confined to the limit of 
protecting life and property ; the rights of persons ; 
the prevention of crime ; the care of those unable 
to work, and doing for the safety and peace of the 
people what individuals are unable to do. But 
Government should have nothing to do with money- 
making enterprises ; with building or subsidizing 
railroads or steamships ; with boring tunnels ; with 
mining or manufacturing enterprises. When it 
undertakes such work, corruption sets in like a 
flood. 

When we go to vote, let us remember that we 
are fulfilling a sacred duty. In this country, all 
our safety and hope is in the virtue and intelli- 
gence of the people. To produce this intelligence 
and maintain this virtue, we must have a religion 
that goes into all parts of life, — into politics, into 
business, into amusements, into work, study, and 
play. 

It is for this reason among others that I rejoice 
in every proof of the advance of a liberal and 
rational Christianity. It is the only one which 
can save the nation. We need a larger, deeper, 
broader, higher faith than the world has ever known 
since the days of Christ and his apostles. We need 
to preach Christ and him crucified in a higher sense 
than that of a vicarious atonement. Christ is cruci- 
fied to-day when injustice is done the lowest of his 



THE ETHICS OF THE BALLOT-BOX. 447 

servants; when demagogues mislead the people; 
when selfish men get power in order to use it only 
for their own advantage ; when hypocrites profess 
to be reformers. 

I ask no man to leave his party and join mine, 
for I have no party, I belong to no party. I shall 
vote with the Republicans as long as they are on 
the side of honesty, freedom, and true reform, and 
give us a real reformer as their candidate. But I 
do not belong to that, or any other party. To be- 
long to any party is to be a slave, and I like no kind 
of slavery. But I will vote with any party which 
votes for truth, for the nation's honor, safety, and 
peace. I only ask others to do what I do myself, — 
to vote with the party which is now for the right. 
When it goes for the wrong I shall leave it, and 
advise others to do the same. 

The election before us is a serious one ; one of 
grave import to the State and nation. 1 It will 
decide whether Massachusetts shall stand hereafter 
as she has stood heretofore, — for the highest ideas 
of the nation ; for a pure government, sound laws, 
honesty, honor ; or whether it shall utter an uncer- 
tain sound on these points. The result will show 
whether Massachusetts is faithful to her grand tra- 
ditions ; whether she resists every attempt to lure 
her from the path of justice ; whether she believes 
in the union of all classes for the public good, and 
rebukes all attempts at setting the poor against the 

1 This was said in November, 1878. 



448 EYEEY-DAY RELIGION. 

rich, or those who labor with their hands against 
those who labor with their brains for the cornnion 
o'ood. I have no doubt, no hesitation, no uncer- 
tainty, as to the result. The State of Hancock 
and Adams, of Quincy, Charles Sumner, John A. 
Andrew, is not to be deceived to its ruin. I do not 
think that God means to disgrace us by leaving us 
to follow cunningly devised fables, or to take for 
leaders such men as the Apostle described as seek- 
ing to lead the Church in his time, " proud, ignorant, 
doting about questions and strifes of words, whence 
cometh envy, strife, railings, evil surmisings, per- 
verse disputings of men of corrupt minds, evil 
seducers, who wax worse and worse, deceiving and 
being deceived." 

In that great sea-fight, in which Xelson fell in 
the arms of victory, he hoisted, as his last signal 
before battle, the flag with the motto, ''England 
expects every man to do his duty.'"' Let our motto 
be not, " Massachusetts expects every man to do his 
duty," but " God expects every man to do his duty." 
Let us show our gratitude to him who has given us 
freedom, peace, plenty in our homes, noble institu- 
tions, and a grand history, by transmitting them 
unimpaired to our children and our children's chil- 
dren. Our fathers, brothers, and sons went to fight 
and die to save the land from slavery and disunion ; 
let us live and work to save it from dishonesty and 
dishonor. 



XXIX. 
THE BIBLE A PANORAMA OF LIFE. 



29 



XXIX. 

THE BIBLE A PANORAMA OP LIFE. 



"Again, talcing him up into an exceeding high moun- 
tain, he showed him all the kingdoms of the world, and the 
glory of them, in a moment of time" 

THE advantage of a view from a high place is, 
that you see the relative positions of all the 
objects around you. You have a map and a land- 
scape in one. Looking over Boston from the 
cupola of the State House, you observe at a glance 
its houses, squares, and public . buildings ; the sea, 
harbor, and islands ; the course of Charles River ; 
the direction taken by the railroads; the density of 
the different centres of population ; and the posi- 
tion and comparative size of East Boston, South 
Boston, Boxbury, and Charlestown. You may live 
in the city for years, and not have as comprehensive 
and accurate an idea of it as you will gain in half 
an hour by looking down on it from such an eleva- 
tion. Hence the importance for travellers, that 
in visiting foreign places they should begin their 
observations by obtaining a view from some central 
and lofty position. 



452 E VERY-DAY RELIGION. 

The same is true in the world of thought. A 
just insight into the relations of daily actions can 
be best gained by rising into the realm of ideas, 
universal truths, large principles. Your two chil- 
dren quarrel about the possession of a plaything. 
To settle that dispute, it is necessary that you 
should explain to them the rights of property, — 
that is, ascend into the region of everlasting justice. 
Some one asks you what you think of Browning's 
poetry or George Eliot's novels. Before you can 
give a satisfactory answer, you must consider what 
makes a good novel or poem ; what is the essential 
quality needed in each ; how many different kinds 
there may be, and which is the best. You must 
take a comprehensive view of literature and art, — 
in short, rise to a position which overlooks the 
whole field. Then you may have some basis for 
your criticism ; otherwise it is only guesswork, or 
the expression of personal partiality. 

Such a wide view, which circles the whole hori- 
zon, we call a panorama. I hope that most of you 
have seen the panorama of the Battle of Gettysburg. 
You walk through a dark passage, go up a few 
stairs, and are at once in the midst of a summer 
landscape, with bright sky, far-reaching plains, over 
which you look for miles to the distant woods and 
hills. You have the battle around you, but with- 
out its distracting tumult. You examine at your 
leisure the main points of that great struggle which 
was one of the decisive battles of history, — a 



THE BIBLE A PANORAMA OF LIFE. 453 

turning-point in the progress of mankind ; and you 
learn more about it as a whole in an hour than the 
actors who took part in it could understand at the 
time. You go away in a serious but grateful mood, 
with the thought in your mind which Bryant had 
on another battle-field : — 

"Oh, never shall the land forget 

Where gushed the best blood of her brave, — 
Gushed, warm with hope and promise yet, 
Upon the soil they died to save." 

Some books give a panorama of life. What an 
infinite variety of characters, situations, historic 
events, pass before us in the novels of Scott, the 
plays of Shakspeare, and the histories of He- 
rodotus ! But more than all we find this in 
the Bible. It differs from other books in giving 
us at the same time the outward action and the 
principle which underlies it, human conduct and 
the divine law which rewards or condemns, the 
progress of nations and the Providence which 
leads them on. 

We rightly call the Bible a revelation of God, — 
of God's will, God's law, God's love and grace. It 
brings us nearer to God than other religious books ; 
that is why it still represents the religion of the 
most advanced races of mankind, and is to them 
their holy Scripture. But the Bible is also a reve- 
lation of man, of human nature in its vast variety 
and essential unity. It shows, with inflexible sin- 
cerity, the failings of the saint and the redeeming 



454 E VERY-DAY RELIGION. 

qualities in the sinner. If we could forget for a 
while that it is a religious book, and read it as a 
collection of interesting pictures from past history 
and biography, it would acquire a new and peculiar 
fascination. We should find it giving the heights 
and depths of human nature, and the strangest ex- 
periences of man in the most vivid coloring. We 
should see how truly 

" Out of the heart of nature rolled 
The burdens of the Bible old." 

Without being less supernatural, it would be in- 
finitely more natural. We can trace in the Bible 
the progress of human society. We have pastoral 
pictures of the wandering nomads, moving with 
their camels, sheep, and slaves, from one grassy 
region to another, pitching their black tents by the 
side of fountains and streams. The patriarchal 
times rise before us, each family surrounding its 
head and chief, who is at once prophet, priest, and 
king. Then we see the Israelites breaking into Pal- 
estine, as the Goths and Saxons and Normans broke 
into Southern Europe, destroying the old civiliza- 
tion, but planting the seeds of something better. 
In the Book of Judges we have a picture of society 
disorganized, a state of anarchy, where every man 
does what is right in his own eyes. Anarchy usu- 
ally produces despotism, and so the anarchy of the 
Book of Judges precedes the autocracy of Saul, 
David, and Solomon. We read how, under Ezra 
and Nehemiah, Hebrew society is reorganized as a 



THE BIBLE A PANORAMA OF LIFE. 455 

hierarchy, under laws administered by a priesthood. 
Society thus organized by priests becomes intol- 
erant, full of bitter zeal, and at last is swept from 
the earth by the secular power of Eome. Mean- 
time, its truths, its sincere religious faith, its mono- 
theism, its moral law, passed like leaven into the 
social life of the Eoman Empire, and worked se- 
cretly within the mass till the whole was leavened. 
Thus, in the Bible, we have a panorama of the his- 
tory of social human institutions, with the expla- 
nation added of the causes of these results. It is 
like one of those clocks with a glass face, where we 
can see not only the movement of the hands, but 
the springs and the wheels that produce the motion 
and regulate it. 

Individual life, in all its forms, also appears in 
the Bible. This book has been found fault with 
because its heroes and saints were not perfect; be- 
cause Abraham and Peter lied, and Samuel killed 
his enemy in cold blood, and Elijah massacred the 
prophets of Baal, and the apostles quarrelled and 
were unable to work together. But that shows that 
it is true to life, — for good men have their faults, 
often grave ones. The Bible gives no picture of 
perfect men, save in a single spotless example. It 
shows us the world as it is, — shadows darkening the 
brightest scenes, sunshine illuminating the blackest. 
The type of lovely womanly fidelity appears in 
Euth, who was not an Israelite, but a Moabite. A 
Eoman centurion comes forward as an instance of 



456 EVERY-DAY RELIGION. 

faith ; a woman of Phoenicia as an example of con- 
fiding hope ; Balaam, the rates of some far-off Syrian 
tribe, is given a high place in the goodly fellowship 
of the prophets ; Melchizedek, a Bedouin sheikh 
and priest, is reverenced by Abraham, the friend of 
God. Thus the Bible, like Jesus, goes among pub- 
licans and sinners, and honors goodness wherever it 
finds it. 

The Bible also gives us the history of religion 
from its lowest forms to its highest. We see the 
gradual progress of this great sentiment through 
fetichism, idolatry, polytheism, and monotheism. 
The Jews themselves present an example of this. 
Under Moses, they worshipped as a fetich a golden 
calf. The brazen serpent became a fetich, so that 
the zealous Hezekiah broke in pieces this venerable 
relic, which had been sacredly preserved from the 
time of Moses, because the children of Israel burnt 
incense before it, and "he called it Xehushtan, a 
piece of brass." The Israelites went through the 
stage of polytheism as well as that of idolatry ; for 
many centuries they worshipped the sun, moon, and 
stars, as their neighbors did. Even monotheism 
was a slow development. With Abraham it meant 
not the worship of Jehovah as the only God, but 
Jehovah as the most high God ; the others might 
be true Gods, but they were inferior to Jehovah. 
With David the gods of the nations became mere 
idols, having some magical power, perhaps, but not 
divine, only demonic. But Paul saw more deeply. 



THE BIBLE A PANORAMA OF LIFE. 457 

He said that an idol was nothing, — neither to be 
loved nor hated. The worship of Jehovah was at 
first that of a jealous God, who would punish any 
personal slight or wrong ; who had his favorites and 
enemies ; who had a local habitation in the ark, 
tabernacle, and Jewish temple; a God who could 
swear in his wrath, and repent that he had made 
man. But with these crude conceptions was a 
leaven of purer thought, and it passed up, by a 
process of development, till the time came when 
Jesus told the woman of Samaria, " God is spirit, 
and they who worship him, must worship him in 
spirit and in truth." Jesus declared that God is 
the universal Father, whose sun shines on evil and 
good, and whose rain falls on the just and the un- 
just; the Father who welcomes back his prodigal 
son ; who has many mansions in his vast house of 
creation, and who will provide v a suitable home 
for every child. When theologians teach that the 
whole of the Bible is the word of God, and that 
the sayings of Job are as divine as those of Jesus, 
they prevent men from seeing the immense advance 
which the Gospel of Christ has made on all the 
beliefs that preceded it. 

So, too, we may observe in the Bible the progress 
not only of religious faith, but of pious emotion. 
For thousands of years piety expressed itself by 
sacrifices, by giving the best thing men had to 
God, in order to please him. Even the wise Solo- 
mon thought to gratify God by offering him not a 



458 E VERY-DAY RELIGION. 

hecatomb, but ten hecatombs of innocent victims. 
Abraham fancied, till a higher inspiration taught 
him better, that it was his duty to sacrifice his first- 
born child. If he were unable to do that, he doubted 
whether his faith could be as powerful as that of 
the neighboring kings, who offered their children 
to Baal and Moloch. We see emotional piety in 
David, — ritualistic and ceremonial piety displayed 
in the grand ceremonies of the Temple, — the piety 
of poetic enthusiasm culminating in Isaiah; the 
piety of mysticism glorified in John ; of plain, prac- 
tical morality in James ; of intellectual insight in 
Paul; and in Jesus the supreme harmony of heart, 
intellect, and will, which made him able to say, " I 
and my father are one," and able to believe that 
his disciples might reach this same height and be 
one with -himself and his Father. 

As the race goes forward, step by step, in its 
slow ascent from barbarism to humanity, we all, as 
individuals, pass through like stages of experience. 
At times can we not sympathize with fetich wor- 
ship ? Do we not keep in some hidden shrine the 
plaything of our dead child, — the little ring, or 
pencil, or withered flower, sanctified to us by the 
sacred memories of the past ? At times are we 
not all idolaters, finding something so great and 
wonderful in this or that man of genius, that we 
give ourselves up without reserve to be led by him ? 
The halo we saw around his brow slowly fades into 
the light of common day ; but he has helped us 



THE BIBLE A PANORAMA OF LIFE. 459 

even through our undiscriminating and uncritical 
idolatry. So have I myself been aided by my un- 
reserved and unquestioning admiration for such 
writers as Milton, Coleridge, Goethe, Shelley, Car- 
lyle, Charming, Emerson. Now I can see defects 
in them which I was unable then to notice ; but 
even such idolatry, if temporary, may help us 
onward. Sometimes we are mystics, with Sweden- 
borg, Plotinus, and Jacob Boehmen ; sometimes 
we share the devotional inspiration of George 
Herbert, Thomas a Kempis, or Fenelon ; some- 
times we are seized with the spirit of monastic 
sacrifice and seclusion, or become devout accord- 
ing to some sacramental and liturgic method. And 
to each of these moods of piety the Bible brings 
some text or example for our encouragement, and 
some warning to keep us from going too far. It 
kindly sympathizes with our childish enthusiasms, 
and gently leads up through them to a broader and 
loftier plane of faith. 

Have there not been hours when we were so op- 
pressed by the sense of our poverty of heart ; our 
coldness, selfishness, self-indulgence ; our sluggish 
inactivity; our easy lapse into folly and sin, that 
no words seemed adequate to express this but the 
extravagant penitence of the Psalmist : " I was 
shapen in iniquity ; " " Fearfulness and trembling 
have come over me, horror has overwhelmed me ; " 
" Oh that I had wings like a dove, then could I fly 
away and be at rest " ? 



460 E VERY-DAY RELIGIOX. 

And have there not been hours when the myste- 
ries of life la}' heavy on our souls ; when the miseries, 
wrongs, and woes of humanity seemed too hard to 
endure ? Then we could understand how Jesus 
bore the sins of mankind on his own heart, and 
how even to him, for a moment, his Father's love 
disappeared, so that he could find no words to 
express his sense of loneliness but those of the 
Psalm, " My God ! my God ! why hast thou for- 
saken me ? " Then, perhaps, we read the Book of 
Job, and we feel that around his soul, as around 
ours, a midnight darkness of contradiction had 
gathered, and the air was " thick with universal 
pain." He also struggled with the same problems as 
we; he could not see the justice of God when the 
good suffered and the wicked were triumphant. 

And sometimes we go down to a lower circle of 
this Dantesque hell, and find ourselves by the side 
of the greatest pessimist the world has known, 
the author of the Book of Ecclesiastes. " Vanity of 
vanity, all is vanity. What profit hath a man of 
all his labor under the sun \ " What is the use 
of anything ? All things go round in an unmean- 
ing circle, coming from nowhere and going nowhere. 
"The sun rises and goes down, and hastes to the 
place where he arose. The thing which has been is 
that which shall be, and there is no new thing under 
the sun." " So," says he, " I hated life ; I hated all 
the labor I had taken under the sun. I went about 
to cause my heart to despair of all the labor it had 



THE BIBLE A PANORAMA OF LIFE. 461 

taken. For all man's days are sorrows, and the 
wise man and fool are alike." 

From this black depth of despair we come up 
into the sunshine and glory of the Gospels. In 
them reigns tfie peace of God, the rest of the soul, 
— a trust which goes so deep that no misery or 
mystery cau disturb it. We have now risen with 
Christ, not upon the mountain where the tempter 
took him, hoping to dazzle his eyes with worldly 
glory ; but to the Mount of Transfiguration, where 
a heavenly glory irradiates the earthly features, 
where we talk in spirit with Lawgiver and Prophet, 
where God is that Light in whom there is no dark- 
ness at all, that Love which evermore teaches us to 
love in return, and the Grace 

" That finds her way, 
The speediest of his winged messengers, 
To visit all his creatures, and to all 
Comes unprevented, unimplored, unsought." 

We stand on this Mount of Transfiguration with 
Christ and his apostles when we have within us 
the spirit that was in them. Then we can converse, 
not only with Moses and Elias, but with David and 
Solomon, Paul and John. With Moses we see the 
majesty of divine law, — the law of the two tables 
which binds heaven to earth and earth to heaven. 
In our hours of sorrow and disappointment, when 
our best hopes seem defeated, w 7 e go away with 
Elijah to some lonely wilderness of thought, where 
we complain that the world is all wrong, that good 



462 EVERY-DAY RELIGION. 

people have no chance, that iniquity triumphs, and 
that only a few are left, like ourselves, who have 
not bowed the knee to Baal. But then we are 
taught, as Elijah was taught, that there are a great 
many more righteous and innocent souls than those 
we know, and that while evil is like the earth- 
quake and fire and tempest, goodness whispers in 
human hearts with a still and small voice. In our 
hours of sorrow, or while sin lies heavy on us, 
David's words come to our lips, and we say, " Why 
art thou cast down, my soul, and why art thou 
disquieted within me ? Hope thou in God, for I 
shall yet praise him, — him, my deliverer and my 
God ! " And sometimes we are carried up to heights 
unattainable by our own strength, on the strong 
pinion of apostolic inspiration, and can say with 
Paul, out of his deep experience interpreting our 
own, that we also can serve God " in patience, in 
necessities, in labors; by pureness, by knowledge, 
by long-suffering, by kindness, by love unfeigned, by 
the word of truth, by honor and dishonor, by evil 
report and good report; as dying, and behold we 
live ; as sorrowful, yet always rejoicing ; as poor, 
yet making many rich ; as having nothing, and yet 
possessing all things." 

Thus, whenever we rise higher, by a good pur- 
pose, by an earnest desire for what is true and right, 
we find the Bible not our master, but our friend. 
It becomes a companion on our way ; it gives us the 
words in which we can best express our experiences 



THE BIBLE A PANORAMA OF LIFE. 463 

and our prayers ; it shows us our own nature and 
needs. There are many noble Scriptures in the 
world, — the Vedas, the A vesta, the writings of the 
Buddhists, the Eddas of the North, — and all have 
something good for the races which revere them. 
But, having given many years to the study of those 
ethnic Bibles, I come back to our own with more 
interest and a higher appreciation. The Old and 
New Testaments go down deeper into the soul's 
needs ; go up higher in their teaching of divine 
truth ; go out more widely in a comprehensive pic- 
ture of human life and earthly experience. As we 
read them, they take possession of us, and yet be- 
long to us. All are ours, whether Paul, Apollos, or 
Peter, or Jesus ; for the sacred words of Jesus seem 
uttered for our own every-day needs ! Jesus is our 
own friend and Saviour; we belong to him and 
he belongs to us. Across the ages he speaks his 
friendly words ; down the long series of years he 
calls us to himself ; he is not only master and Lord, 
but brother and companion. 

From off the mountain's lonely height 

We gaze with glad surprise, 
Where, in the shadow and the light, 

The broadening landscape lies. 
Fields, forests, rivers, gleam and shine; 

The wide-spread world surrounds us ; 
But still the pale horizon line 

Encircles, limits, bounds us. 
Ascend the vaster height of soul, 

The mount of ancient story, 



464 E VERY-DAY RELIGION. 

And all earth's lands and realms unroll 

Their map of gloom and glory. 
Prophets and saints with mortals talk, 

And seers of every nation 
Upon this mount with Jesus walk, — 

Mount of Transfiguration. 
No human weakness limits place ; 

No earthly hounds can hold us ; 
No hard restraint of Time and Space, 

"When Thought's high realms enfold us. 



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erature, Life, and Chief Families of the Colonial Period. 

Vol. II. treats of the Royal Governors ; French and Indian Wars ; Witches 
and Pirates ; The Religion, Literature, Customs, and Chief Families of the 
Provincial Period- 

Vol. III. treats of the Revolutionary Period and the Conflict around Boston ; 
and the Statesmen, Sailors, and Soldiers, the Topography, Literature, and 
Life of Boston during that time ; and also of the Last Hundred Years' 
History, the War of 1812, Abolitionism, and the Press. 

Vol. IV. treats of the Social Life, Topography, and Landmarks, Industries, 
Commerce, Railroads, and Financial History of this Century in Boston ; 
•with Monographic Chapters on Boston's Libraries, Women, Science, Art, 
Music, Philosophy, Architecture, Charities, etc. 



* # * Sold by subscription only. Send for a Prospectus to the 
Publishers, 

TICKNOR AND COMPANY, Boston. 



A List of Boohs Published by 



THE STUDENTS' SERIES OF 

STANDARD POETRY. 

EDITED BY W. J. ROLFE, A.M. 

ISP* All these books are equally suited to the use of the student, and that of 
the general reader. They should have a place in every library, public or private. 
Price 75 cents each. 



I. SCOTT'S LADY OF THE LAKE. 

The text is correctly printed for the first time in fifty years. The notes 
(88 pp.) include Scott's and Lockhart's, and are fuller than in any other 
edition, English or American. The illustrations are mainly of the scenery 
of the poem, from sketches made on the spot. 

II. TENNYSON'S THE PRINCESS. 

The notes (50 pp. ) give the history of the poem , all the readings of the 
earlier editions, selected comments by the best English and American 
critics, full explanations of all allusions, &c. The illustrations are from 
the elegant Holiday edition. 

III. SELECT POEMS OF TENNYSON. 

Including the Lady of Shalott, the Miller's Daughter, (Euone, the Lotos- 
Eaters, The Palace of Art, A Dream of Fair Women, Morte d' Arthur, The 
Talking Oak, Ulysses, Locksley Hall, The Two Voices, St. Agnes' Eve. Sir 
Galahad, The Brook, &c. The text is from the latest English edition (1884). 
The notes (50 pp.) include a careful collation of the earlier editions, with 
explanatory and critical comments. The illustrations are of high char- 
acter. 

IV. SCOTT'S MARMION. 

With copious Notes and introductory matter. The text is now correctly 
printed for the first time. 

V. THE YOUNG PEOPLE'S TENNYSON. (In press.) 

VI. SELECT POEMS OF TENNYSOty. Second Part. (In Press.) 



TREMONT EDITIONS. Each in 1 vol. 16mo. Beautifully illustrated. 
With red lines, bevelled boards, and gilt edges, #2.50. Half-calf, $4.00. 
Antique morocco, flexible calf, flexible seal, or tree-calf, $6.00. 

Lucile. The Princess. Marniion. The Lady of the lake. 



POCKET EDITIONS. Each in 1 vol. Little-Classic size. With thirty Illus- 
trations. Elegantly bound, $1.00. Half-calf, $2 25. Antique morocco, or 
flexible calf or seal, $3.00. Tree-calf, $3.50. 

Lucile. The Princess. Marralon. The Lady of the Lake. 



Ticlcnor and Company. 



THE CHOICEST EDITIONS 

OF THE 

FIVE GREAT MODERN POEMS. 



Drawn and engraved under the care of A. Y. S. Anthony. Each in 
one volume, 8vo, elegantly bound, with full gilt edges, in a neat box. 
Each poem, in cloth, $6.00 ; in tree calf, or antique morocco, $10.00; 
in crushed levant, extra, with silk linings, $25.00. Copiously illustrated 
after drawings by Thomas Moran, E. H. Garrett, Harry Fenn, A. B. 
Frost, and other distinguished artists. 

CHILDE HAROLD. 

The choicest gift-book of 1885-1888, with nearly 100 noble Illustra- 
tions, of great artistic value and beauty, representing the splendid 
scenery and architecture of the Rhine, Greece, Italy, etc. 

THE PRINCESS. 

The most famous poem of Alfked, Lokd Tennyson. With 120 
new and beautiful Illustrations. 

" The most superb book of the season. The exquisite binding makes a fit 
casket for Tennyson's enchanting ' Princess.' " — Hartford Journal. 

THE LADY OF THE LAKE. 

A superb fine-art edition, with 120 Illustrations. The choicest edition 
of Scott's wonderful poem of Scottish chivalry. 

" On page after page are seen the great dome of Ben-an rising in mid-air, huge 
Ben-venue throwing his shadowed masses upon the lakes, and the long heights of 
Ben Lomond hemming the horizon." — Atlantic Monthly. 

LUCILE. 

By Owen Meredith. With 160 Illustrations. 
The high peaks of the Pyrenees, the golden valleys of the Rhineland, 
and the battle-swept heights of the Crimea. 

" This new edition is simply perfect — paper, type, printing, and especially the 
illustrations, — a most charming Christmas gift." — American Literary 
Churchman. 

MARMION. 
With more than 100 Illustrations, and Borders. 
" Wild Scottish beauty. Never had a poem of stately and immortal beauty a 
more fitting setting." — Chicago Inter-Ocean. 



For Sale by Booksellers. Sent, postpaid, on receipt of price, by the 
Publishers, 

TICKNOR AND COMPANY, Boston. 



THE 

AMERICAN ARCHITECT 

AND BUILDING NEWS. 

An Illustrated "Weekly Journal of Architecture and the Building Trades. 

Each number is accompanied by six fine quarto illustrations, while 
illustrative cuts are liberally used in the text. Although the paper 
addresses itself primarily to architects and builders, by its discussions 
upon matters of interest common to those engaged in building pursuits, 
it is the object of the editors to make it acceptable and necessary to 
that large portion of the educated classes who are interested in and 
appreciate the importance of good architectural surroundings, to civil 
and sanitary engineers, draughtsmen, antiquaries, craftsmen of all kinds, 
and all intelligent readers. 

As an indication of the feeling with which this journal is regarded 
by the profession, we quote the following extract from a report of a com- 
mittee of the American Institute of Architects upon " American Archi- 
tectural Journals ": — 

"At Boston, Mass., is issued the American Architect and Building 
News, a weekly of the first clas?, and, it must be acknowledged, the only 
journal in this country that can compare favorably with the great London 
architectural publications. It is very liberally illustrated with full-page litho- 
graphic impressions of the latest designs of our most noted architects, and with 
occasional views of celebrated European buildings. Once a month a fine gelatine 
print is issued in a special edition. Its editorial department is conducted in a 
scholarly, courteous, and, at the same time, independent tone, and its selections 
made with excellent judgment. It is the accepted exemplar of American archi- 
tectural practice, and is found in the office of almost every architect in the 
Union." — April 15, 1885. 

Subscription Prices. (In Advance.) 

Regular Edition. — $6.00 per year; $3.50 per half year. 

Gelatine Edition (the same as the regular edition, but including 
12 or more Gelatine Prints). — $7.00 per year ; $4.00 per half year. 

Monthly Edition (identical with the first weekly issue for each 
month, but containing no Gelatine Prints). — $1.75 per year; $1.00 per 
half year. 

Bound volumes for 1876, 1877, 1878, 1879, 1880, 1881, $10.50; 1882, 
1883, 1884, and 1885, $9.00 each. 

Specimen numbers and advertising rates furnished on application to 
the publishers, 

c TICKNOR AND COMPANY, 

6 8 3 2T1 TREM0N7 STREET, BOSTON, MASS. 





















































































































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